
10 CEN 


UEER RACE 

n * THE 5T0RY OF ★ * 
LL ★ A 5TRAHGE PEOPLE 



A Queer Race 


THE STORY OF A STRANGE PEOPLE 


BY 

WILLIAM WESTALL 

a 



NEW YORK 

STREET & SMITH, Publishers 
238 William Street 


TWO COPIES RECEIVE. . 

L itirary of Ceigrgng 

Offloa „f m -p^g 

APR 2 0 1900 ,v/ 5 ^ 



Entered according to act of Congrfess in the year 1900 
By Street & Smith 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 






FIRST COPY, 

/0‘jrsy 

/foo 




A QUEER RACE 


THE STORY OF A STRANGE PEOPLE 


By WILLIAM WESTALL. 


CHAPTER I. 

FOUL PLAY. 

The heat and burden of the day were over, and I had 
withdrawn to my own room to write my private letters 
and think over a few matters which required more con- 
sideration than I had yet been able to give them. My 
nerves were beginning to recover from the shock they 
had sustained by the loss of the Niobe, and the cy- 
clone at Colon; nevertheless, the outlook was still dark, 
the claims arising out of these two disasters being exceed- 
ingly heavy, and to meet them would tax our resources 
to the utmost. Another big loss and we should be “ in. 
Queer Street.” The company would have to suspend 
payment and go into liquidation. 

The worst of it was that, as touching the Niobe, I 
had rendered myself — in a moral sense — almost person- 
ally responsible. A brand-new ship, A1 at Lloyd's, owned 
by a firm of repute, commanded by a captain of charac- 
ter, and bound only to Havana — a mere summer trip — 
the risk seemed as light as well could be. I felt myself 
quite justified in granting a voyage policy of ten thou- 
sand pounds on the body of the ship, and covering her 
cargo for the same amount (without particular average). 
In fact, I thought that I had done an excellent stroke of 
business, and when one of the directors, an over-cautious 
old curmudgeon, with whom I had never been able to get 


4 


A QUEER RACE. 

on, suggested the expediency of reinsuring to the ex- 
tent of a third or a half, I was very much amused, and 
did not hesitate to tell him so. 

Now the laugh was on the other side — the scolding, 
rather, for at the last Board meeting I had got an awful 
wigging. All the directors — wondrouslv wise after the 
event, as directors are wont to be — could see how impru- 
dently I had acted, and the very men who had chaffed old 
Slocum for his timidity were now the loudest in blaming 
my rashness. 

Even if the company weathered the storm, it was about 
even betting that I should lose my berth. 

As for the Colon affair, I was in no way blameworthy. 
Nobody can foresee a cyclone, and both actually and rela- 
tively we had been less severely hit than any of our com- 
petitors — quite hard enough, however, for our limited 
capital. 

But the Niobe! So far as I could learn, she had not 
encountered so much as a gale of wind all the way out; 
yet sprung a leak, and went down in a calm sea off the 
coast of Cuba; all hands saved, all the cargo lost, except 
the master’s chronometer and sextant! 

Queer — very queer! If the owners had been less honor- 
able, and the captain less respectable, I should almost 
have suspected foul play. Yet even honorable people do 
strange things; while as for the captain, did not some 
great authority say that every man has his price? I had 
reason to believe, too, that both ship and cargo were heav- 
ily overinsured, and it was being whispered on ’Change 
that Barnes & Brandyman would make a deuced good 
thing by the loss of the Niobe. But what could Ido? 
The Niobe was not the first ship which had foundered in 
fair weather; and to dispute the claim on grounds that 
might expose me to an action for slander, and lay the com- 
pany under suspicion of seeking a pretext to evade pay- 
ment, would be both foolish and fatal. Everything 
seemed to be in order; Barnes & Brandyman were an 
honorable firm, and that day week we must either “ pay or 
burst.” J 

Twenty thousand pounds! 

A pleasant lookout! and a nice row there would be 
when I asked the Board to pass the check! As likely as 
not old Slocum would insist on suspending payment at 


5 


A QUEER RACE . 

once; for we had contingent liabilities in the shape of 
unclosed risks which might exceed the whole of our un- 
called capital. 

I had arrived at this point of my musings, when there 
came a knock at the door, followed by Slocum junior, a 
cheeky young rascal who, on the strength of being a 
volunteer and the son of a director, took liberties and 
gave himself airs. 

“ Well?” I said, tartly; for he had bounced in without 
waiting for an invitation. 

“ There's a man in the office wants to see you, and he 
refuses either to give his name or state his business; only 
he says it is very pressing and particular — the business, I 
mean, not the name.” 

“ What sort of man is he?” 

“ Seafaring; an Ancient Mariner sort of chap.” 

“ A skipper?” 

“Looks like an A. B., boatswain, cockswain, or cook, 
or something of that sort.” 

“ Oh, I cannot be bothered with able-bodied seamen 
at this time of day. It is nearly five o'clock, and 1 have 
all my letters to write. He must state his business — or 
stay, he can see me to-morrow morning at ten o'clock.” 

“All right, I'll tell him. But he's a stupid-looking old 
beggar; I don't think he will go away.” 

In two minutes Slocum junior was back again; came in 
this time without even so much as knocking. 

“The Ancient Mariner resolutely and not very respect- 
fully refuses either to state his business or call to-mor- 
row,” said the young fellow, jauntily. “ Does not care so 

d d much whether you see him or not, but it will be 

to your loss if you don’t.” 

I felt very much disposed to send the Ancient Mariner 
to the deuce, but curiosity getting the better of dignity, 
I told Slocum to show him in. 

“I thought that would fetch him!” muttered the 
young jackanapes, as he went out to execute my commis- 
sion, which he did by going to the door and shouting, 
“ Come in!” 

The “ Ancient Mariner sort of a chap ” came in accord- 
ingly. Though evidently in the seafaring profession, 
there was very little of the conventional sailor about him. 
He had neither hair on his face nor a quid in his cheeks; 


6 


A QUEER RACE. 

neither shivered his timbers nor hitched np his trousers. 
His manner was quiet and self-possessed, and his voice 
low (he had certainly not used the coarse expression at- 
tributed to him by Slocum); and albeit slightly grizzled, 
he did not look much above forty. The man had, more- 
over, a genial, good-humored countenance, the high color 
of which showed that he had lately voyaged in low lati- 
tudes, and his clear, wide-open blue eyes bespoke both 
honesty and courage. 

Slocum junior lingered about the door as if he wanted 
to take part in the conversation. 

“You may go, Mr. Slocum,” I said, severely; and mut- 
tering something which I did not catch, he went. 

“That is right,” said the Ancient Mariner; “ my bus- 
iness is very private, and ” — glancing round — “I hope 
there's no possibility of anybody listening?” 

“Hone. The door is thick, and fits close, and my 
desk is a long way frcm it. Besides, nobody could listen 
without being seen by all the clerks in the outer office. 
What can I do for you? Won't you sit down?” 

“ Thank you kindly. I don't know as you can do much 
for me; but may be 1 can do something for you. You 
are Mr. Sidney Erie, underwriter of the Oriental and Oc- 
cidental Marine Insurance Company, aren't you?” 

“Iam. And you?” 

“Thomas Bolsover, abled-bodied seaman, late a quar- 
ter-master aboard the Niobe.'' 

“Ah!” 

“You underwrote the Niobe, didn't von, for a biggish 
figure?” 

“ I am sorry to say we did.” 

“ And I am very sorry. But this must not go any 
further, Mr. Erie. I am only a common seafaring man, 
late a quarter-master aboard the Niobe, and I don't want 
to get myself into no trouble.” 

“ I understand, Mr. Bolsover; and you may be sure 
that I shall do nothing to compromise you. What passes 
here will go no further without your permission.” 

“ Well, I was going to say as I am sorry to say that 
the Niobe did not get fair play.” 

“You mean that she got foul play?” 

“Ido.” 


A QUEER RACE. 7 

“I feared as much. But. is it merely a case of sus- 
picion, or do you know something?” 

“ I know something. Leastways, if seeing is knowing, 
I do; but I cannot say as anybody told me anything.” 

“ Seeing is better than hearing in a matter of this sort. 
What did you see?” 

“ Well, we had a fine run across, made good weather 
ail the way out, and after touching at St. Thomas’, the 
course was shaped for Cuba. Later on it blew three parts 
of a gale of wind, but nothing at all to hurt; everything 
•was made snug, and it was over in a few hours. Well, 
the morning after, I was going below after my spell at 
the wheel in the second night-watch, when who should I 
see coming up out of the hold but the captain, with 
an auger in one hand and a lantern in the other. I said 
nothing, of course, and though when lie saw as I’d seeu 
him he looked a bit flustered, and slunk away to his cabin, 
I did not think much of it — just then. But when the 
bo’sun told me next day as we had sprung a leak, I began 
to put two and two together. Because the ship didn’t 
ought to have sprung a leak; she had done nothing to 
make her spring a leak. But it was not for me to say 
anything, and I held my tongue.” 

“ But you kept your weather eye open, I suppose?” 

“I tried. Well, she sprung a leak — leastways, they 
said she did — and the leak gained on us. The carpenter, 
he could do no good; so the pumps was rigged, and we 
pumped and pumped for nigh on a week, but the more 
we pumped the more water she seemed to make, and at 
last she got so low down that the captain said that, hav- 
ing done our duty by the ship, we must now look to our- 
selves. So the boats was got out, and the captain, who 
was the last to leave the deck, came into the dingey and 
ordered the others to shove off. They were on the star- 
board side, we on the port. He had hardly given the 
order when she gave a list to starboard that nearly bared 
her keel, lay for a moment on her beam-ends, and then 
Went bodily down. As she heeled over I saw a sight I 
shall never forget — four big holes in her hull, every one 
of ’em spouting water.” 

“ Who was in the dingey besides yourself?” 

“The captain, the carpenter, and another A. B.” 

“ Did nobody else see the holes?” 


8 A QUEER RACE. 

“No. All the other boats was lying off on the star- 
board side of her/’ 

“ After that you went away?” 

“ Yes; we were not more than fifty miles from the 
coast of Cuba, and we made land before morning.” 

“ Who do you suppose were the captain’s confederates? 
T mean who, besides himself, do you think was concerned 
in this vile plot to sink the ship?” 

“ The carpenter and the first officer.” 

“ And the other sailor who was in the dingey with you 
— what has become of him?” 

“ Alec Tobin? W 7 here he is just now I cannot say; 
but he shipped at Cuba aboard ahomew r ard-bound ship.” 

“ Well, Mr. Bolsover, I am very much obliged for this 
information; it is very important. I said I would keep 
your secret, but I think I shall have to mention the mat- 
ter to our directors. The information would be of no 
use to me else. However, that need not trouble you. 
You shall be protected, whatever comes.” 

“ That is all I want, sir.” 

“ And rewarded. In the meantime, take this ” — offer- 
ing him a sovereign. 

“ Not for me, thank you, sir. If I was to take money 
for my information it wouldn’t look right. You have 
only my word for this ’ere, and a man shouldn’t take 
pay for telling the truth.” 

“You are an honest fellow, Bolsover — as honest as you 
look. If you won’t accept money, I must try to show my 
gratitude in some other way. It was very good of you to 
come to me. How did you happen to know my name, 
might I ask?” 

“Oh, I have seen you afore, sir. You maybe re- 
member breakfasting with Captain Peyton aboard the 
Diana one morning when she lay in the Huskisson 
Dock?” 

“I remember it very well.” 

“ Well, I was one of his crew, and heard him speak of 
vou afterward, and say as you knew f Lloyd’s Register ’ off 
by heart; and I heard Captain Deep, of the Niobe, tell 
the first officer one day as the ship was insured in the 
Oriental and Occidental, so it seemed sort of natural as 
] should come to you.” 


9 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ lam glad you did. Yes, I know Captain Peyton very 
well. A man of the right sort, he is.” 

“ And a first-rate sailor. He knows his business, he 
does. You were saying just now as you would like to do 
something for me. Well, I should like nothing better 
than to sail with him again; and if you would speak to 
him, he’d maybe give me a berth as bo’sun or quarter- 
master. I know a bo’suu’s duty as well as any man, sir.” 

“ I’ll do that with pleasure, Bolsover, as soon as Cap- 
tain Peyton comes home; and that won’t be long, I think, 
The Diana is sixty days out from Montevideo, and is 
pretty sure to be here by the end of the month. You had 
better leave me your address, and then I can communi- 
cate with you about that or the other matter.” 

I handed him a pen, and he put down his address in a 
sprawling but sufficiently legible hand. As he bent his 
arm, his coat-sleeve (which was none of the longest) ran 
up a little, and hared his wrist, showing a strange device 
in blue ink: a ship in full sail, above which was tattooed 
a name, “ Santa Anna;” and below, a date, “ 1774.” 

I should have liked to ask what it all meant, but as time 
was going on, and my letters were still to write, T re- 
frained, little thinking how much the device portended nor 
how strangely the mystery which lay behind it was destined 
to affect my fortunes. 

Then we "shook hands, and Bolsover went away and left 
me to my thoughts. 


CHAPTER II. 

MR. BEANDYMAN. 

I WAS right,' then; there had been foul play. Captain 
Deep had committed the crime of barratry, with the con- 
nivance, and doubtless at the instance, of the ship’s own- 
ers, Messrs. Barnes & Brandyman. There are a good 
many respectable people who would do even worse if they 
could make twenty thousand pounds thereby, this being 
the amount which Messrs. Barnes & Brandy man’s treach- 
ery was likely to bring them; for, as I have already ob- 
served, they 'had insured the Niobe and her cargo largely 
elsewhere; and, to give the firm their due, they did not 
do things by halves. They were not the sort of people 


i 


10 A QUEER RACE. 

to commit a felony and run a serious risk for an old 

song. 

But the question that most concerned me was my own 
course of action. What should I do? It was obvious 
that I could not bring a charge of barratry against so in- 
tensely respectable a firm as Barnes & Brandy man with- 
out tiie most convincing proofs. But the only proof I 
could adduce was Bolsover’s statement, and as he was 
sure to be flatly contradicted by the captain, the mate, 
and the carpenter, that would not avail me much, even 
though I should find and produce Alec Tobin, the other 
sailor who had seen the holes in the Niobe’s hull. 

Moreover, no insurance company, above all a company 
so weak and young as ours, would venture, save on the 
very strongest grounds; openly to dispute a claim and 
fight so strong a firm as Barnes & Brandyman; for failure 
would not only involve discredit, but increase the original 
loss by the cost of an expensive lawsuit. 

All the same, I was determined net to let these people 
reap the reward of their villainy if I could possibly help 
it, and after a long cogitation I decided on a plan of 
campaign which I proceeded to put into execution at the 
next Board meeting. When the Niobe claim came up 
for discussion, I quietly observed, to the great amaze- 
ment of the directors, that I did not think Barnes & 
Brandyman would insist on its payment. Of course I 
was overwhelmed by an avalanche of questions, to which 
I answered that for tiie moment I must keep mv own 
counsel, but that at the next meeting they should know 
everything, assuring them that in the meantime they 
might trust me to neither compromise the company’s 
reputation nor involve it in any further liability. With 
this they were content, probably because they guessed 
that I had found something out, and were ready to grasp 
at any chance, however remote, of keeping' the concern 
on its legs. 

I am a pretty good draughtsman, and when I went 
home in the evening I drew a little sketch, which I made 
as graphic and as life-like as I could. It represented the 
hold of a ship, a man boring holes with a big auger, 
another man behind him holding a lantern; and, hovering 
above both, a grinning devil, in his hand a well-filled 
bag, on which was inscribed “ £20,000.” The first man 


11 


A QUEER RACE. 

■was Captain Deep, the second Mr. Brandyman, and both, 
I flatter myself, were rather striking portraits. 

The next morning I called at Barnes & Brandyman's 
office and asked to see Mr. Brandyman; for though not 
the head of the Arm, he was its guiding spirit and presid- 
ing genius. A pleasant-spoken, portly, fresh-complex- 
ioned, middle-aged gentleman, it seemed the most nat- 
ural thing in the world that he should wear mutton-chop 
whiskers and a white waistcoat, sport a big bunch of 
seals, be an important man in the town, and a shining 
light at the Rodney Street Chapel (as I understood he 
was). 

He gave me a cordial greeting, and after inquiring, with 
much seeming interest, as to my own health and that of 
my mother, ho asked how the Oriental and Occidental 
was getting on.” 

“ As well as can be expected for a new company,” I 
answered, cautiously and vaguely. 

“You find the Niobe papers all in order, I hope?” 

“ Oh, yes; the papers ” — emphasis on “ papers ” — “ ap- 
pear to be quite in order.” 

“That is all right then. When shall we send round 
for our check? It is a large amount to be out of. Walk- 
ers settled yesterday, and the other companies will set- 
tle to-day, I believe. All the same, there is no hurry, 
and if it would be more convenient next week ” 

“ You can send round for the check whenever you like, 
Mr. Brandyman, but ” — here I paused a moment — “I 
am by no means sure that you will get it.” 

“ What for, I should like to know?” firing up. 

“ Look at this, and you will see what for. 

And with that I whipped out the sketch and laid it 
before him. 

He looked at it curiously, but when its meaning 
dawned on his mind (as it did very quickly) his counte- 
nance changed as if he had seen a Gorgon's head. His 
high color gave place to a death-like pallor, the paper 
dropped from his trembling hand, and there was a hoarse 
gurgle in his throat which made me fear that he was 
going to have a fit. 

“ You seem faint, Mr. Brandyman; drink this, and 
you will feel better,” I said, filling a tumbler of water 
from a carafe that stood on the table. 


12 


A QUEER RACE . 

“ Thank you,” he gasped. “’Tis a sudden faintness. 
It must be the heat of the room, I think. A — a curious 
sketch this! Where — where did you get it?” 

“I drew it, Mr. Brandyman — from information I re- 
ceived .” 

“ Really!” — looking at it again; “ I did not think you 
were so clever, Mr. Erie, and — and — what can I do for 
you, Mr. Erie?” 

“ Nothing at all. Only, with your permission, I should 
just like to give you a hint.” 

“ Of course — certainly — I am sure — yes — what is it?” 
returned Mr. Brandyman, a little incoherently. 

“Well, if I were you, I would not send round for that 
check. We are a young company, and don’t want litiga- 
tion; but ” 

“I will think about it, Mr. Erie. I will speak to my 
partner, and think about it. And this sketch — you can, 
perhaps, leave it with me. I should not like — I mean I 
should like to keep it, if you will let me. It is so very 
curious.” 

“By all means. Keep it as a memento of our inter- 
view, Mr. Brandyman — and of the Niobe.” 

And then I bade him good-bye, and returned to the 
office in the full assurance that the twenty thousand pound 
check would never be sent for. True, I had no evidence 
of the barratry worth mentioning — from a legal point of 
view — but conscience makes cowards of us all. Mr. 
Brandyman gauged our knowledge of the facts by his own 
fears. He believed, too, though I had not said so, that 
we should resist payment of the claim; and as I could 
well see, he dreaded the scandal of a lawsuit, involving a 
criminal charge, as much as we dreaded litigation and 
heavy law expenses. 

The Board fully approved of what I had done, and I re- 
ceived many compliments on my smartness. Iliad saved 
the Oriental and Occidental from serious danger, and 
given it a . new chance of life; which is another way of say- 
ing that I had saved the directors a good deal of money, for 
as all were shareholders, the failure of the company 
would have brought them both loss and discredit. 

A few days later Tom Bolsover called at the office 
to tell me (what I knew already) that the Dir 


A QUEER RACE. 13 

hud arrived in the Mersey, and to remind me of my prom- 
ise. 

This was quite a work of supererogation on his part. I 
was not likely to forget either his services or my prom- 
ise. and I renewed my offer of a handsome reward; but 
he would accept nothing more valuable than a pound of 
cavendish tobacco and a box of Havana cigars. 

Shortly afterward I saw Captain Peyton and asked him, 
as a favor to me, to grant Bolsover’s request if he possi- 
bly could. 

Well,” he said, smiling, “ Fll do my best. Crazy 
Tom is a thorough seaman; and, yes — I dare say I can.” 

“ Crazy Tom!” I exclaimed, in surprise. “ Why crazy? 
I never met a saner man in my life.” 

“ Oh, he is sane enough except on one point, and what 
is more, lie’s honest. A good many folks call him ‘ Hon- 
est Tom.’ It was only on my ship they called him crazy. 
I expect that is why he left me; and he maybe thinks that 
if I make him boatswain he will escape being chaffed.” 

“ But why on earth did your people call the poor fellow 
crazy, and what did they chaff him about?” 

“ Well, he has a fad; tells a yarn about a lost galleon, 
with a lot of treasure on board, and not only swears it is 
true, but believes the galleon is still afloat, and that one 
day or another he’ll find her.” 

“ And why shouldn’t she be still afloat?” 

“ Well, seeing that, from his account, it’s more than 
a century since she disappeared, it is not very likely, I 
think ! The idea is perfectly ridiculous ami absurd — crazy, 
in fact,” said Captain Peyton, who was a bluff, matter-of- 
fact north-countryman. *'• But all this is second-hand. 
Tom never spoke to me about it in his life, and he lias 
been so unmercifully chaffed that I fancy he does not like 
to speak about it. I daresay, though, he would tell you 
the yarn if you have any curiosity on the subject.” 

“ Well, I rather think I should like to hear the story 
of the lost galleon; for, if not true, it is pretty sure to 
be interesting, and that’s the main point in a story, after 
all. Se non e vero, e ben trovato, you know.” 

However, I did not hear Tom’s yarn just then, nor 
until several things had happened which I little expected. 
Captain Peyton got fresh sailing orders sooner than he 
anticipated, and made Bolsover happy by engaging him 


14 


A QUEER RACE. 

as boatswain; and the latter was so much occupied that 
he had barely time to call and say 4 4 good-bye ” the day 
before the Diana was towed out to sea. I did not see him 
again for several months, in circumstances which I shall 
presently relate. 


CHAPTER III. 

NIL DESPEKANDUM. 

And now I think it is time I told how it came to pass 
that, at an age when most young men of my years have 
only just left college or begun business, I was a profes- 
sional underwriter, and virtually the manager of the 
Oriental and Occidental Insurance Company. 

My father was a merchant, and for many years a partner 
in the house of Waterhouse, Watkins, Erie & Co., who 
traded principally with the West Indies and South 
America, though being very catholic in their commercial 
ideas, they would have shipped coals to Newcastle, or 
warming-pans to Madagascar, if they had been sure about 
their reimbursement, and could have seen a trifling profit 
on the venture. 

My father, who was the traveling member of the firm, 
went about a good deal 4 4 drumming ” for fresh business, 
and at one period of his life spent several years at 
Maracaibo, in Venezuela — a fact which accounts for my 
having been born there. Now, anybody who goes to 
Maracaibo as surely gets a touch of yellow fever as any- 
body who stays a winter in London gets a taste of yellow 
fog. It is a matter of course, and new-comers make 
their arrangements accordingly. My parents underwent 
the ordeal the year before I came into the world, which 
circumstance was supposed to confer on me a complete 
immunity from this terrible pest of the tropics. 1 was 
acclimatized by the mere fact of my birth. 

I cannot say that I esteemed the privilege very highly, 
for I had not the most remote intention of returning to 
Maracaibo, which from all accounts is a pestiferous, 
mosquito-haunted pandemonium. 

My poor father used to say that whatever else he might 
leave me, he should at least leave me free from all fear 
of Yellow Jack. 

As it turned out, he left me little else. After his re- 


A QUEER RACE. 


15 


turn from foreign climes he settled down in Liverpool, 
took a big house in Abercrombie Square, entertained 
largely, and lived expensively. When 1 was about six- 
teen, and a pupil at Uppingham School, my father (who 
had been a free liver) died suddenly of apoplexy, and an 
investigation of his affairs resulted in the painful dis- 
covery that, after payment of his liabilities, the residue 
of his estate would only provide my mother and myself 
with an income of something less than two hundred a 
year. So we had to give up our fine house in Abercrombie 
Square and go into lodgings, and I left Uppingham and 
began to earn my own living — literally, for after I was 
seventeen 1 did not cost my mother a penny. 

The calling I took up was not of my own choosing. 
Had my father lived a little longer, or left us better off, 
I should have gone into the army. 1 did subsequently 
join the volunteers, and alter serving for a while in the 
artillery, became first lieutenant and then captain in a 
rifle regiment. In the circumstances, however, I was 
glad to accept the offer of Mr. Oombie, of the firm of 
Combie, Nelson & Co., ship and insurance brokers, to 
take me into his office and push me forward, “ if I 
showed myselL smart,” as he was sure I would. 

I justified his confidence, and he kept his word. Al- 
though I would much rather have been a soldier, I had 
sense enough to give my mind to the insurance business, 
and in a comparatively short time I became familiar with 
all the intricacies of general average and particular aver- 
age, the draughting of policies, and the rest; and if I did 
not, as Captain Peyton had told Tom Bolsover, know 
‘ Lloyd's Register 9 off by heart, there was not a sea- 
going ship belonging to the port of Liverpool whose age, 
classification, and character (which meant, in many in- 
stances, the character of her owners) I could not tell 
without referring to the book. 

The partners often consulted me as to the premiums they 
ought to charge, and the risks which it was prudent for 
them to take; they gave me a salary which made my 
mother and myself very comfortable, and had I been 
patient and waited a few years, I should doubtless have 
become a member of the firm. But I was ambitious; 
and when the newly constituted Oriental and Occidental 
Marine Insurance Company invited me to become their 


1C A QUEER RACE. 

underwriter, I accepted the offer without either hesitation 
or misgiving. 

But cautious Mr. Combie shook his head. 

“It/s a very fine thing,” he said, “for a young man of 
t.wo-and-twenty to get the writership of a company, and, 
though I say it that should not say it — to our firm. But 
you are taking a great responsibility on yourself, and you 
will need to be very prudent. Fifty thousand pounds is 
not too much capital for an insurance company, and this 
is a time of inflation, and the shareholders will expect you 
to earn them big dividends. Between you and me, I have 
no great confidence in these new concerns. They are go- 
ing up like rockets, and some of them, I fear, will come 
down like sticks. But you are young, and if the Orien- 
tal and Occidental does not answer your expectations, 
you will still have the world before you, and I have always 
said that you are one of those chaps who will either make 
a spoon or spoil a horn.” 

The senior meant kindly, and I thanked him warmly; 
but I was too much elated by my advancement to give 
due attention to his warnings, although I had good rea- 
son to remember them afterward. My elation did not, 
however, arise solely, or even chiefly, from professional 
pride and gratified ambition. The fact is, I had lost my 
heart to Amy Mainwaring, a charming girl of eighteen, 
with peach-like cheeks, soft brown eyes, and golden hair; 
and being as impetuous in love as I was diligent in busi- 
ness, and Amy loving me as much as 1 loved her, I had 
made up mv mind to marry at the earliest possible mo- 
ment — that is to say, as soon as the father gave his con- 
sent and I could afford to keep a wife. I thought the 
salary which I was now beginning to earn would enable 
me to do this easily. But Mr. Mainwaring did not quite 
see the matter in the same light. He said we were both 
absurdly young, and however well off I might be, we 
should be all the better for waiting awhile. Moreover, 
like Mr. Combie, he had not absolute confidence in the 
stability of the Oriental and Occidental. 

To my pressing entreaties he answered: 

“ Let us see what a couple of years bring forth. You 
will be quite young enough then, and the delay will give 
you a chance of laying something by for a rainy day.” 

Two years! To Amy and me this seemed an eternity; 


1 ? 


A QUEER RACE. 

but as neither of us wanted to defy her father, and lie 
was quite deaf to reason, there was nothing for it but to 
sigh and submit, and wait with such patience as we 
might for the fruition of our hopes. 

Time went on, and long before the period of probation 
expired I had to acknowledge that Mr. Mainwaring's 
caution had more warrant than my confidence. After 
doing a brilliant business during the first six months of 
our career, the tide turned, and in a very short time we 
lost nearly all we had made. For this result — though we 
had really very ill-luck — I fear that I was in part respon- 
sible. I was too keen and sanguine; I did not like to 
turn money away. I had not Mr. Combie and Mr. Nel- 
son to consult with, and I underwrote risks that I ought 
to have refused. I had not always the choice, however; 
for our paid-up capital being small, first-class insurers 
fought shy of us, fine business went elsewhere, and 1 
had to take my pick among the residue and remainder. 

This was the state of things eighteen months after I 
joined the Oriental and Occidental; and had I not got 
over the difficulty about the Niobe, it is extremely prob- 
able that the company would have smashed or I should 
have been dismissed. In either event I should have lost 
my occupation, and in either event Mr. Mainwaring 
would, I felt sure, have insisted on the rupture of my en- 
gagement with his daughter. 

Hence my prospects, whether business or matrimonial, 
were not of the brightest, and Amy and I were often in 
horribly low spirits. We had thought two years a terri- 
ble time, and now I began to fear that I might have to 
wait for her as long as Jacob had to wait for Rachel. I 
am bound to say, however, that our gloom was relieved 
by rather frequent gleams cf gayety and happiness. One 
does not despair at three-and-twenty. 


CHAPTER IV. 

CRAZY TOM'S YARIT. 

After my memorable interview with Mr. Brandyman, 
thing’s took a more favorable turn with the Oriental and 
Occidental. We had better luck, and I took more care, 
preferring rather to do a small business than run great 
risks. Our spirits rose with the shares of the company — 


lb .4 QUEER RACE. 

mine and Amy’s as well as the directors’ — and we began 
to think we were on the highway to prosperity, when a 
misfortune befell which scattered our hopes to the winds. 
The Great Northern Bank (like our own, a limited liabil- 
ity concern of recent creation) suspended at a time when 
we had a heavy balance to credit, and the very day after 
we had paid away several large checks in settlement of 
claims. The checks, of course, came back to us, and as 
we had no means of taking them up, we too had to sus- 
pend. 

I lost my place, of course — a defunct company has no 
need of an underwriter; and worse — I had taken a part of 
my salary in shares, and on these shares there was an un- 
paid liability which absorbed all my savings. The col- 
lapse of the company left me as poor as when I entered 
Oombie & Nelson’s office'seven years before; and by way 
of filling up my cup of bitterness to the brim, Mr. Main- 
waring informed me (in a letter otherwise very kind and 
sympathetic) that my engagement with Amy must be con- 
sidered at an end. He did not forbid me to visit his 
house, but he said plainly that the seldomer I came the 
better he should be pleased. 

1 thought he was hard, but I felt he was right. What 
was the use of a man being engaged to be married who 
had no present means of keeping himself, much less a 
wife? All the same, Amy and I swore eternal constancy, 
and we vowed that, come weal, come woe, neither of us 
would ever marry anybody else: and I thought she really 
meant it — I am sure I did. 

This conclusion, however satisfactory as far as it went, 
did not afford much help toward a solution of the press- 
ing question of the moment: What should I do? — how 
avoid becoming N a burden on my mother? I had asked 
Mr. Oombie to take me back; but my place was filled up, 
and as a severe financial crisis had just set in there was 
little chance of my finding a place elsewhere. Firms and 
banks were falling like ninepms, and men of business 
looked and talked as if the world were coming to an end. 
A word to any of them about finding me a situation 
would have been regarded as an insult to his under- 
standing. 

While I was revolving these things in my mind, and 
wondering what on earth I should do, I received a call 


19 


A QUEER RACE . 

from Captain Peyton, who had lately returned from one 
voyage and was about to start on another. He condoled 
with me over the failure, and inquired what I “thought 
of doing,” whereupon, as he was an old friend, I told him 
of my difficulties, and asked his advice. 

“ What do I think you should do?” he exclaimed, 
cheerily. “ Why, what can you do better than come with 
me to Montevideo? I mean, of course, as my guest. 
Make the round trip; you will be back in six months, and 
by that time business will be better, and you will get as 
many berths as you want. Young men of your capacity 
and energy are not too plentiful. What do you say?” 

“ Yes, with all my heart!” 1 answered, grasping his 
hand. “ Thanks, a thousand times thanks, Captain Pey- 
ton! I have long wanted to make a deep-sea voyage, and 
after the turmoil and anxiety of the last few weeks the 
Diana will be a veritable haven of rest. When do you 
sail?” 

“In u fortnight or so.” 

“Ail right; I shall be ready. I suppose Bolsover is 
still with you?” 

“ Yes, Crazy Tom is our boatswain; and a good one he 
makes. He will maybe tell you that yarn of his, if you 
take him when he is in the humor. I tried him one day, 
but it was no go. He would not bite. I expect he thought 
I wanted to chaff him,” 

“ Yarn? yarn? Oh, I remember. Something about a 
galleon, isn’t it?” 

“ Yes; a Spanish treasure-ship lost ages ago. The crazy 
beggar believes she is still afloat. He is sane on every 
other point, though. However, you get him to tell you 
all about it. It is a romantic sort of yarn, I fancy.” 

“ When we get to sea.” 

“'Yes; that will be the time. When we get into the 
northeast trades, all sails set aloft and alow, and there is 
not much going on — that is your time for spinning yarns.” 

Shortly after this I heard a piece of news which com- 
pleted the tale of my misfortunes, and made me wretched 
beyond measure. I heard that Amy Mainwaring was en- 
gaged to young Kelson! If my mother had not seen it 
it in a letter written by Amy herself to a common friend, 
I couldn’t have believed it; but incredulity' was impos- 
sible. I was terribly cut up and extremely indignant. 


20 


A QUEER RACE. 

and vowed that I would never have anything to do with 
a woman again — in the way of love. 

Two days later we were at sea. The Diana was a fine, 
full-rigged merchantman, one thousand two hundred tons 
burden, with an auxiliary screw and a crew of thirty-nine 
men, miscellaneous cargo of Brummagem ware, Man- 
chester cottons, and Bedford stulfs. She had half a 
dozen passengers, with all of whom (except, perhaps, a 
young fellow who was taking a sea voyage for the benefit 
of his health) time was more plentiful than money. For 
all that, or perhaps because of that, they were very nice 
fellows. 

We had lots of books among us, and what with read- 
ing, talking, smoking, sauntering on deck, playing whist 
and chess, the days passed swiftly and pleasantly. Now 
and again we gave a sort of mixed entertainment in the 
saloon, at which the skipper and as many of the ship’s 
company as could be spared from their duties on deck 
were present. Two of the passengers could sing comic 
songs, one fiddled, another recited; I played an accordion 
and performed a few conjuring tricks, and one way and 
another we amused our audiences immensely, and won 
great applause. 

I naturally saw a good deal of Tom Bolsover, but in 
the early part of the voyage the weather was so variable 
and he so busy that he had little time for conversation,' 
and we exchanged only an occasional word. But when 
we got into the region of the trades he had more leisure, 
and going forward one fine morning, I found him sitting 
on a coil of rope, apparently with nothing more import- 
ant to do than smoke his pipe and stare at the sails. 

“ I was very sorry to hear of the busting up of that ’ere 
company,” he said, after we had exchanged a few re- 
marks about things in general. 

“ Yes, you saved us twenty thousand pounds, and I 
thought that would pull us through; but we lost twice as 
much by the suspension of our bankers, and then we 
were up a tree, and no mistake.” 

“ 1 hope you did not lose much by it, sir?” 

“Well, I lost my situation and all my money, and I 
had a very nice sum laid by.” 

“All your money! Dear, dear! I am very sorry. But 
you surely don’t mean quite all?” 


A QUEER RACE. 


21 


“ Yes, I do. I have very little more left than I stand 
up in? But what of that? I am young, the world is 
before me, and when I get back I shall try again. I 
mean to make my fortune and be somebody yet, Bolsover, 
before I am very much older. ” 

‘‘Fortune! fortune! If we could only find the Santa 
Anna we should both make our fortunes right off. There 
is gold and silver enough on that ship for a hundred fort- 
unes, and big ’uns at that.” 

“The Santa Anna! -What is the Santa Anna, and 
where is she?” 

“I wish I knew,” said the old sailor, with a sigh; “I 
wish I knew. It is what I have been trying to find out 
these thirty years and more. “ Fll tell you all about it ” 
— lowering his voice to a confidential whisper — “ only 
don’t let the others know — they laugh at me, and say 
I am crazy. But never mind; let them laugh as wins. 
I shall find her yet. I don’t think I could die without 
finding her. You won’t say anything?” 

“ Not a word.” 

“ Well,” went on the boatswain, after a few pensive 
pulls at his pipe, “ it came about in this way. My father, 
he was a seafaring man like myself; he has been dead 
thirty-three years. He’d have been nigh on ninety by 
this time if he had lived. Well, my father — he was a 
seafaring man, you’ll remember — my father chanced to 
be at the Azores — a good many people see the Azores, 
leastways Pico, but not many lands there — but my father 
did, and stopped a month or two— I don’t know what for 
— and being a matter of sixty years since, it does not 
much matter. Well, while he was there, he used to go 
about in a boat, all alone, fishing and looking round — my 
father was always a curiosish sort of man, and he had an 
eye like a hawk. Well, one day he was sailing round 
the island they calls Corvo, very close inshore, when he 
spies, in a crevice of a cliff — the coast is uncommon 
rugged — he spies something as didn’t look quite like a 
stone — it was too round and regular like; so he lowers his 
sail, takes his sculls, and goes and gets it. What do you 
think it was?” 

“I have no idea. A bottle of rum, perhaps.” 

“No, no, not th-at,” said Tom, with a hurt look, as if 
I had been jesting with a sacred subject. “ It was a tin 


22 


A QUEER RACE . 

case. It had been there a matter of forty or fifty years* 
maybe, washed up by the sea, and never seen by a soul 
before it was spied by my father. Inside the case was a 
dokyment as told how, in 1744, a British man-of-war 
captured the Santa Anna, a Spanish galleon, with mill- 
ions of money on board.’'’ 

“ Millions! Not millions of pounds?” 

“ Yes. millions of pounds. She was a big ship, carried 
forty guns, and must have been a matter of two thousand 
tons burden. Now, a ship of that size can hold a sight 
of gold and silver, Mr. Erie.” 

“ Rather. Almost as much as there is in all England, 
I should say.” 

“Just so, Mr. Erie,” said Bolsover, with glistening 
eyes. “ Suppose she carried no more than one thousand 
five hundred tons dead weight, and half of it was gold 
and half silver, that would be a pile of money — make 
baskets and buckets full of sovereigns and crowns and 
shillings, to say nothing of six-pences and fourpenny- 
pieces, wouldn't it, sir?” 

“Cartloads! Why, you might give away a few wheel- 
barrows full without missing them.” As the poor fellow 
was evidently quite cracked on the subject, I thought it 
best to humor him. “ But you surely don't mean to 
sav that the galleon was full — bang up full of gold and 
silver?” 

“ Yes, I do; and why not? Doesn't the dokyment say 
as she was a richly laden treasure-ship? and doesn't it 
stand to reason that if she was richly laden — mark them 
words, sir, ‘ richly laden ' — that she must ha’ been full. 

“Why, yes, it does look so, when you come to think 
about it,” I said, gravely. “The man who finds the 
Santa Anna will have a grand haul; nothing so sure.” 

“ Won't he!” returned the boatswain, gleefully, in his 
excitement chucking his pipe into the sea. “Now, look 
here, Mr. Erie; you said you was poor — as you had lost 
all the money as you had. Here's a chance for you to 
get it all back, and twenty thousand times more! Help 
me to find the Santa Anna, and we will go halves — share 
and share alike, you know.” 

“Thank jmu very much, Bolsover. It's a very hand- 
some offer on your part, and I am awfully obliged; but as 
yet I must own to being just a little in the dark. Say ex- 


A QUEER RACE. 


23 

actlv what it is you want me to do. If it is a case of div- 
ing, I don’t think I am the man for you; for, though a 
fair swimmer, I could never stay long under water, and 
I don’t understand diving-bells.” 

“ No, no, sir; the Santa Anna never foundered; she 
is on the sea, not under it. You surely don’t think, sir, 
as God A'mighty would let all that money go to Davy 
Jones’ locker? As far as I can make out, all the ship’s 
company died of thirst. When that dokyment was 
written, they was dreadful short of water; and the ship 
became a derelict, and went on knocking about all by 
herself — is, may be, knocking about yet — she was teak- 
built and very stanch — or otherwise she has run aground 
on some out-of-the-way island, or drifted into a cove or 
inlet of the sea. Anyhow, she is worth looking after; 
and I have always thought as if some gentleman would 
give me a helpin’ hand — somebody with more ’ead and 
edycation than I have myself — we should be sure to suc- 
ceed in the end; nay, I am sure we should — I feel it; I 
know it. Will you help me, Mr. Erie? I cannot tell 
you how — I am only a common seafaring man; but you 
are a scholar, with a head like a book. They say as you 
knows ‘ Lloyd’s Register’ by heart, and a man as can learn 
( Lloyd’s Register’ by heart can dQ anything.” 

“ You are very complimentary, Bolsover, and I am ex- 
tremely obliged for vour good opinion. But you give mo 
credit for a good deal more cleverness than I possess; 
for, tempting as is an offer of half a shipload of gold and 
silver, I really don’t see what I can do. If 1 were a 
skipper and had a ship, or a rich man and owned a yacht, 

I might possibly help you; but you must see yourself that 
I cannot go about exploring every island, and inlet, and 
cove in the world, or keep sailing round it until I spot 
the derelict Santa Anna, particularly as you don’t seem 
to have the least idea where she was when last heard 
of.” 

“ There you are mistaken, Mr. Erie, I could a’most 
put my finger on the very spot. But will you read the 
dokyment? Then you will know all about it — more than 
I know myself, for a man as can learn ‘ Lloyd’s Regis- 
ter’ ” 

“ The document! The paper your father found! You 
surely don’t mean to say you have it?” I exclaimed, in 


24 


A QUEER RACE. 

surprise; for up to that moment I bad thought the boat- 
swain's story pure illusion, and himself as crazy on the 
point as Peyton said he was. 

“ Yes, I have it. My father, he gave it me just afore 
he died. ‘ Tom/ he says, ‘ I cannot leave you no money, 
but I gives you this dokyment. Take care of it, and look 
out for the Santa Anna, and you'll die a rich man/ Will 
you read it, Mr. Erie?” 

“ Certainly. I’ll read it with pleasure.” 

Bolsover rose from the coil of ropes, slipped into the 
forecastle, and in a few minutes came back, with a smile 
of satisfaction on his face and a highly polished tin case 
in his hand. 

“ Here it is,” he said; “ you’ll find it inside.” 

“ But this is surely not the case your father found at 
the Azores?” 

“ No. That was all rusty and much battered. He had 
hard work to get the dokyment out without spoiling it. 
He got this case made a-purpose. Nobody has ever read 
it but him and me. Everybody as I mentioned it to al- 
ways laughed, and that made me not like showing it. 
When you have read it, Mr. Erie, you’ll tell me what you 
think. " But keep the dokyment to yourself. What’s least 
said is soonest mended, you know; and if you was to men- 
tion it to the others they’d only laugh. And now 7 ” — 
looking at his watch — “I must pipe up the second dog- 
watch.” 

Promising to observe the utmost discretion, I put the 
tin case in my pocket, went to the after-part of the ship, 
lighted a cigar, sat me down on a Southampton chair, and 
proceeded to carry out Tom’s wish by reading the paper 
which had so much excited his imagination, and was now, 
in spite of myself, beginning to excite mine. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE DOCUMENT. 

The “dokyment,” as poor Tom called it, though it 
seemed to have been carefully used (the leaves being 
neatly stitched together and protected by a canvas cover), 
had suffered much from wear and tear, the rust of the 
original tin case, and the frequent thumbings of its two 
readers. The ink was faded, the handwriting small and 


A QUEER RACE . 


25 


crabbed; the lines were, moreover, so very close together 
that I found the perusal, or, more correctly, the study of 
the manuscript by no means easy. Parts of it, in fact, 
were quite illegible. I had often to infertile meaning of 
the writer from the context, and there were several pas- 
sages which I could not make out at all. 

No wonder the boatswain wanted a man of “’ead and 
edycation " to help him. The form of the document was 
that of a journal, or log; but it was hardly possible that 
it could be the work of any combatant officer of a war- 
ship on active service. The style was too literary and 
diffuse, and, so to speak, too womanish and devout. 
The writer, moreover, whose name, as I read on, I found 
to be “ Hare,” did not write in the least like a seaman. 
He could not well have been a passenger; and I had not 
read far before 1 found that he was a clergyman and naval 
chaplain. 

The first entry in the diary was probably written at 
Spit head, and ran thus: 


“II. M. S. Hecate, 


17th, 1740. 


“Left our moorings this day, under sealed order-, so 
as yet no man on board knows whither we are bound or 
where we are to cruise. May God bless and prosper our 
voyage, and protect the dear ones we leave at home! 

“ 19th. — Been very much indisposed the last two days; 
not very surprising, considering that this is my first voy- 
age, and we have had bad weather. Wind now moderat- 
ing, but still blowing half a gale. 

“ 20th. — The captain has opened his orders. The 
Hecate is to sail with all speed across the Atlantic, cruise 
about the Gulf of Mexico, in the track of homeward- 
bound Spanish merchantmen, and keep a sharp lookout 
for treasure-ships. Officers and ship’s company highly 
delighted with the prospect thus opened out of prize- 
money and hard fighting, these treasure-ships being al- 
ways either heavily armed or under convoy, or both. 
To do the Hecate justice, I believe the prospect of hard 
knocks affords them more pleasure than the hope of re- 
ward; and though we carry only forty guns, there is 
not a sailor on board who is not confident that we are a 



26 


A QUEER RACE. 

does sometimes indulge in profane swearing, tlie royal 
navy possesses not a better mail nor a braver officer. ” 

“ Next followed a series of unimportant entries, such 
as: 

“ Church parade and divine service." 

“ In the sick-bay, reading the Bible to Bill Thompson, 
A. B., who fell yesterday from one of the yard-arms, and 
lies a-dying, poor fellow.” 

“ Dined with the captain, the second luff, and two of 
the young gentlemen.” 

“ This day a flying-fish came through my port-hole. 
One of the ship's boys caught' him, and the cook made 
an excellent dish of him for the gunroom mess. It 
seemed a shame to kill the creature who sought our 
hospitality and protection, for he was doubtless escaping 
from some enemy of the sea or the air.” 

And so on, and so on. All this did not occupy much 
space, yet, owing to the reverend gentleman's crabbed 
fist, the faded ink, and the thumb-marks of the two Bol- 
so vers, it took long to read; and in order not to miss any- 
thing, I had made up my mind to read every word that it 
was possible to decipher. 

At length my patience and perseverance received their 
reward. The diary became gradually less tedious and 
monotonous. There was a storm in which the Hecate 
suffered some damage, and the diarist (who does not seem 
to have been particularly courageous) underwent consid- 
erable anxiety and discomfort; and a man fell overboard, 
and, after an exciting attempt to rescue him, was 
drowned. Then the Ilecate chases a vessel which Cap- 
tain Barnaby suspects to be a French privateer; but re- 
membering how imperative are his orders to make with 
all speed his cruising-ground, he resumes his course after 
following her a few hours. For the same reason he shows 
a clean pair of heels to a French frigate, greatly to the 
disgust of his crew, for though she is of superior size, 
they are quite sure they could have bested her. The 
chaplain, on the other hand, warmly commends the cap- 
tain's prudence, observing that “discretion in a com- 
mander is to the full as essential as valor.” 

The region of the gulf reached, everybody is on the 
watch; there is always a lookout at the mast-head, the 
officers are continually sweeping the horizon with their 


27 


A QUEER RACE. 

glasses, and the men are exercised daily at quarters; for 
Captain Barnaby, with all his prudence, appears to have 
been a strict disciplinarian. Being of opinion that he 
will the better attain his object by remaining outside 
the Gulf of Mexico than by going inside, he cruises 
several weeks in the neighborhood of the Bahamas. 
With little success, however; he captures only two or three 
vessels of light tonnage and small value, which he takes 
to Nassau, in New Providence. 

Ill-satisfied with this poor result, Barnaby resolves to take 
a turn in the gulf, and, if he does no good there, to make 
a dash south, in the hope that he may perchance encounter 
some homeward-bound galleon from Chili or Peru. So 
passing through the Straits of Florida, he runs along 
the northern shores of Cuba, doubles Cape San Antonio, 
revictuals at Kingston, in Jamaica, and re-enters the 
South Atlantic between Trinidad and Tobago. 

A fortunate move was this in one sense, though, so far 
as the poor chaplain and a considerable part of the ship’s 
company were concerned, it resulted in dire misfortune. 

Ten days after the Hecate left the Caribbean Sea, two 
ships were sighted, which the captain and everybody else 
on board believed to be the long-sought treasure-ships. 
But besides being treasure-ships, they had every appear- 
ance of being heavily armed galleons, and either of them, 
as touching weight of metal and strength of crew, was 
probably more than the frigate’s match. All the same, 
the Hecate’s crew were full of fight and eager for the 
fray, and the captain had not the remotest intention of 
balking their wishes. But he was prudent withal, and 
though quite ready, if needful, to tackle the two Span- 
iards together, he thought it as well — doubtless on the 
principle of not throwing a chance away — to fight them 
singly if he could, and took his measures accordingly. 

What these measures were, I had some difficulty in 
making out. I am not a seaman, and Mr. Hare’s 
account, besides being in part illegible, was by no means 
as clear as it might have been. I will, however, do my 
best to describe in plain, untechnical language, as any 
landsman would, the things that came to pass after the 
commander of the Hecate resolved to engage the galleons 
single-handed. 

The chaplain never gave the frigate’s reckoning; but I 


28 


A QUEER RACE. 

concluded ( n which opinion Bolsover, with whom I 
afterward discussed the point, concurred) that at this 
time she was probably a few degrees south of the equator, 
and not far from the coast of Brazil, sailing west-sou’- 
west; while the galleons, when first seen, were sailing 
nor’-east by north. One of them seems to have been a 
little in advance of the other, and Captain Barnaby’s plan 
was to entice Use first — and therefore presumably the 
faster sailer— to follow him, and so separate the two ships 
as widely as possible before engaging. To this end he 
spread all the canvas he could, but slowly and clumsily, 
in order to give the idea that he was short-handed, and 
then slipped a spar over the ship’s stern as a drag to 
check her speed. 

The bait took. The galleons, after exchanging signals, 
hoisted the Spanish flag, whereupon the leading vessel 
(which, as afterward appeared, was the Santa Anna, the 
other being the Buy Bias) gave chase. She -was by no 
means a bad sailer, and came on so fast that Captain 
Burnaby soon found it expedient to haul in the spar and 
go ahead. But when he had got her fairly away, the 
course of the Hecate was suddenly changed. Turning on 
her heel, so to speak, she passed the Santa Anna’s bows, 
delivering a broadside that raked her from stem to stern; 
and before the Spaniards had time to recover from the 
confusion into which they were thrown by this unex- 
pected salute, the frigate ran alongside and gave her a 
second broadside. As Captai n Burnaby had given orders to 
fire high and take careful aim, the two broadsides wrought 
great havoc among the Santa Anna’s rigging. A top- 
mast and several other spars were shot away, the shrouds 
cut into ribbons, and altogether so much damage was 
done that she could by no possibility make a move for 
several hours. 

Captain Burnaby next turned his attention to the Ruy 
Bias, which was gallantly bearing up to her consort's 
help. The Hecate, having got the weather gauge, was 
quite prepared, and the two ships were soon at close quar- 
ters. The Spaniards stood well to their guns, and a hot 
fight followed, which, according to Mr. Hare, lasted 
nearly an hour. 

“The scene on deck,” wrote the poor chaplain, “was 
past describing. The half naked sailors, working the 


A QUEER RACE. 


*9 

guns, their bodies streaming with perspiration, their faces 
blackened with powder-smoke, themselves wild with ex- 
citement, cheering and yelling like fiends; the officers 
brandishing their swords and shouting their orders; the 
roar of artillery; the crash of the Spaniards’ balls as they 
struck our hull; and, above all, the dreadful pools of 
blood at my feet, and the screams of the poor stricken 
ones as they fell at their posts or writhed in agony on 
the deck, thrilled my soul with horror, and, though I 
prayed fervently for the success of our arms, I feared that 
God would never bless a victory gained at so terrible a 
price. 

‘•'But the horror of the sights on deck was surpassed 
by the scene in the cockpit, where, during the engage- 
ment, l spent nearly all my time, helping the surgeon, 
and doing my utmost to solace and console the poor 
wounded. Their sufferings were heartrending; the sight 
of their mangled bodies was almost more than I could 
bear, and I had several times to turn away, or I should 
have swooned outright. 

“ Poor Myers, a tiny midshipman of fourteen, a fair- 
haired and sweet-tempered boy, whom I greatly loved, 
was brought down, shot through the lungs. The surgeon 
shook his head. ‘ He is beyond my skill,’ he whispered. 
‘I must leave him to you.’ The poor child looked at me 
with lack-luster eyes; the pallor of death was on his face; 
and as I tried to cheer him with hopes of a speedy release 
from his sufferings, and a happy hereafter, the tears 
streamed down my cheeks, and I could scarce speak for 
sobbing. But he seemed to be looking afar off, and gave 
no heed. ‘ Mother, mother,’ he moaned, ‘ I am coming 
home;’ and then lie died. 

“ 1 was turning to the surgeon to ted him that all was 
over, when we were affrighted and almost thrown off our 
feet by a terrific explosion, which shook the ship from 
stem to stern, and made her heel over as if she had been 
struck by a heavy sea. 

“Not knowing what had befallen, but fearing the 
worst, I ran up the hatchway. The firing had ceased, 
and consternation was written on every face. I had no 
need to ask the cause. The Buy Bias had blown up, and 
parts of her, which had been projected to a prodigious 
height, were still falling into the water, where, amid a 


*0 A QUEER RACE . 

tangled mass of floating wreckage that darkened the sur- 
face of the sea, were struggling a few human forms, sole 
survivors of the catastrophe. 

“ As humane as lie was brave. Captain Barnaby ordered 
boats to be lowered. His commands were promptly 
obeyed, and the men succeeded in rescuing about a score 
of Spaniards, some of whom were dreadfully hurt. 
They were taken into the cockpit, and our surgeon had 
his hands full indeed; but the tale of wounded was now 
complete, for the captain of the Santa Anna, appalled by 
the disaster which had overtaken his consort, struck his 
flag at the first summons. As all had anticipated, she 
proved to be a rich treasure-ship, being — so ran the re- 
port on board the Hecate — laden with little else than 
gold and silver; and officers and men were soon engaged 
in computing how much prize-money they were likely to 
receive. In anticipation they are already rich, but the 
amount is a matter of conjecture; for a guard has been 
put over the treasure, and Captain Barnaby declares that 
he will not have it overhauled until we reach port. 

4 4 The Santa Anna’s damages have been made good, 
and a prize crew put on board; and as we have two hun- 
dred Spanish prisoners (who might, were they left on the 
galleon, attempt to retake her), a hundred of them are to 
be transferred to the Hecate. The captain, who had at 
first some idea of calling at one of the West India 
Islands, or at Nassau, has finally decided to make 
straight for England, and our course has been shaped ac- 
cordingly. 

‘• Another terrible day, the events of which I can only 
briefly set down. 

“ Shortly after six this morning 1 was roused from a 
sound sleep by the wardroom steward. * You had bet- 
ter get up, Mr. Hare/ he said. 4 The ship is on fire.’ 

“Alas! it was only too true. 

“ After a fight, discipline is always more or less re- 
laxed; the spirit- room had been inadvertently left open, 
and some unauthorized person, going in with a naked 
light, accidentally set fire to a can of rum, which, run- 
ning over the floor, set everything in a blaze. 

“ The woodwork, desiccated by the heat of the trop- 


31 


A QUEER RACE. 

ics, was as dry as tinder, and the conflagration spread with 
frightful rapidity. When I reached the deck, although 
only a few minutes had elapsed since the alarm was given, 
smoke was coining up the after-hatchway, and the crew, 
under the direction of the captain, were doing their ut- 
most to put out the fire. Pumps were going; buckets 
were being passed from hand to hand; the decks were 
deluged with water, and tons of it poured into the hold. 

“ But all to little purpose; and after half an hour’s 
strenuous exertion, I heard the captain give an order 
which showed that he despaired of saving the ship. It 
was to lower the boats and remove the wounded to the 
Santa Anna, under the charge of the surgeon and chap- 
lain. 

“It was a dreadful task, and caused some of the poor 
maimed creatures most exquisite pain; but sailors are won- 
derfully deft and handy, and the order was executed in 
a much shorter time than might be supposed. 

“ Yet, short as the time was, the fire had visibly 
gained ground, and we watched its progress from the 
deck of the Santa Anna with unspeakable anxiety. But 
not until the after-part of the ship was wrapped in 
flames, and her destruction imminent, did the captain 
give up the attempt to save her, and order the crew to 
take to the boats and come on board the Santa Anna, 
which was hove-to at about a cable’s length away. He 
was the last to leave the deck, and ten minutes after he 
quitted it the Hecate was one mass of flame, a burning 
fiery furnace, the heat of which we could feel even on 
the galleon’s deck. 

“ We watched tfie fire until it burned down to the 
water’s edge and was extinguished by the sea, leaving 
nothing of the once gallant war-ship behind save a few 
charred fragments. Then, the wind being fair, orders 
were given to make sail, and we went on our course, not 
without hope, despite the omens, of a speedy and happy 
termination of our eventful cruise. 

“ Most of the officers and men have lost all their effects 
in the fire; but, thanks to the thoughtfulness and cour- 
age of the boy who waits on me, I have saved a good part 
of my wardrobe, some writing materials, and nearly all 
my books. 


82 


A QUEER RACE . 


“ The captain informed me this morning that he is 
very well pleased with the Santa Anna. She is one of 
the best built ships he ever saw, being constructed of a 
wood called teak, hard enough and stout enough to last 
a century. She is also a good sailer, and, with favorable 
weather and moderate luck, we may, he thinks, reach 
Portsmouth in about fifty days. 

“ I sincerely hope so, and pray God he may prove a 
true prophet; for I am sick of the sea, and so soon as we 
get home I shall resign my appointment, and seek a less 
exciting, if a more monotonous, sphere of duty ashore. 

“ A terrible discovery was made yesterday. We are 
short of water. 

“ According to the purser's calculations, made the day 
after the burning of the Hecate, the supply on board the 
Santa Anna was amply sufficient for the voyage to Eng- 
land; but it now turns out that several of the casks which 
he thought were full are quite empty, and we have not 
more than enough for ten days’ consumption. We are 
already on short allowance, and Captain Barnaby has de- 
cided to make for the Bermudas. 

“It is very unfortunate this discovery was not made 
sooner, for at the best we cannot reach New Providence in 
less than fifteen days, and if we have bad weather or con- 
trary winds — but I will not anticipate evil. We are in 
the hands of Him whom the winds and waves obey. 

“ For two days it has blown a hurricane, and we have 
been driven hundreds of miles out of our course. The 
allowance of water is reduced to a quart a day for eacli 
man for all purposes, and as it is terribly hot, and as our 
diet consists chiefly of salt pork and hard biscuits, our 
sufferings are almost past bearing. 

“ Becalmed. Allowance reduced to a pint. 

“Still becalmed. To-day a deputation from the crew 
waited on the captain, and requested that, in order to 
economize water, and, perchance, save their lives, the 
Spanish prisoners should be thrown overboard. This he 
refused to do, but he ordered the Spaniards’ allowance to 
be reduced to half a pint. 


A QUEER RACE. <38 

“ The Spaniards, maddened by thirst, have attempted 
to seize the ship. A number of them, who were allowed 
to walk on deck, secretly released their comrades, and at- 
tacked the watch — some with cutlasses obtained 1 know 
not how, others with marline-spikes, or whatever else 
came to hand. The Englishmen at first driven from the 
deck were speedily re-enforced, and then ensued a fright- 
ful struggle in the dark, the Spaniards, utterly reckless of 
their lives, fighting with the ferocity of despair. But in 
the end they were overcome, the wounded (and 1 fear 
many of the whole) thrown into the sea, and the surviv- 
ors forced below and put in irons. The captain, himself 
sorely hurt, had great difficulty in protecting them from 
the fury of his men, who, if they might have had their 
way, would not have left a single Spaniard alive. 

“ Still becalmed. Oh, how gladly would we give this 
thrice accursed treasure for a few casks of water, or even 
a few hours’ rain! 

“I am sick — I fear, nay, I hope, unto death, for I suf- 
fer so horribly from thirst that death would be a happy 
release. Yesterday two seamen committed suicide, and 
my dear friend, Captain Barnaby, has died of his wounds 
and want of water, since, hurt though he was, he nobly 
refused to take more than his share. 

“ The command now devolves on Lieutenant Fane. 
He is a first-rate seaman, and a man of resolute and 
original character, but he has some strange ideas. 

“I write this with difficulty. I am worse. To-mor- 
row I may not be able to write, and as I have no hope of 
ever seeing England again, I know not what will become 
of the ship and her crew. I am about to inclose my 
diary (which contains a narrative of the principal events 
that have befallen us since the Hecate left England) in 
a water-tight case and commit it to the waves. It may 
perad venture be found after many days 

“ I beseech any good soul into whose hands these pages 
may fall to forward them to [illegible] Surrey, England, 
or to the Secretary of the Admiralty, London. 

“ On board the galleon Santa Anna, 

“ February 7, 1744. 


“ Robert Hare.” 


34 


A QUEER RACE. 


CHAPTER VI. 

OF THE SAME OPINION STILL. 

“ Poor fellow! 1 wonder what became of him and the 
others? But why on earth didn't they distill fresh water 
from sea water?" were the first thoughts that occurred to 
me after reading the chaplain's narrative. 

And then I remembered that the events in question 
took place in a pre-scientific age; that there was certainly 
no distilling apparatus on board the Santa Anna, nor, 
probably, any means of making one large enough to pro- 
vide for the requirements of two or three hundred, possi- 
bly three or four hundred men. 

Again, why did not they take to their boats and try 
to reach land that way instead of waiting helplessly for a 
wind, with a certainty that if it did not come quickly 
they must all perish? But I knew not how far they were 
from the nearest land, for the chaplain never indicated 
the position of the ship, and seldom gave the date or even 
the days of the week, so that the length of time which 
elapsed between the different events set forth in the 
manuscript was a matter of pure conjecture. It was^ 
moreover, quite possible that the Santa Anna's boats 
had been smashed by the Hecate's fire, and, in any case, 
they could not have held the crew and the prisoners and 
enough provisons and water for a long voyage. I could, 
however, see nothing to warrant the boatswain's belief 
that the galleon had become derelict or been cast away. 
Men can live a long time on a very short allowance of 
water; the chaplain would naturally be one of the first to 
succumb, and when the weak ones died off there would 
be more water for the survivors. Besides, who could say 
that a breeze had not sprung up, or a heavy shower of 
rain fallen, the very day after poor Mr. Hare committed 
his diary to the waves? 

l found no opportunity for a few days of speaking to 
Bolsover again, except in the presence of others. But 
when the chance came, I returned him his ct dokyment," 
which, in the meanwhile, I had carefully reperused. 

“ Well, sir," he asked, anxiously, “ what do you think?" 

Believing that I could do the poor fellow no greater 
kindness than to cure him of his hallucination. If that 


A QUEER RACE. 35 

were possible, I said that in my opinion there was about 
as much likelihood of finding the Santa Anna as of find- 
ing the lost Atlantis or the philosopher's stone. 

“I don't know much about them there," answered 
Tom, who did not seem greatly impressed by the com- 
parison; “ but if you mean as to think there is no likeli- 
hood of finding that there galleon, I should be glad to 
know why you think so, if you would kindly tell me." 

“ Well, to begin with, there is no proof either that the 
people on board the Santa Anna died of thirst, as you 
suppose, or that she became derelict." 

‘‘Doesn't that gentleman as wrote the dokyment say 
as he lay a-dying, and that the men were so punished for 
want of water that they begun to jump overboard?" 

“ Two jumped overboard, which 1 suppose is what the 
chaplain meant when he said they had committed suicide. 
But don't you see that every death made a drinker the 
less? The weak would be tiie first 'to go; the strongest, 
seeing that they would have a fair supply of water, might 
live for weeks — months, even." 

Bolsover's countenance fell; this was a view of the mat- 
ter that had not occurred to him. 

“ And how do you know," I went on, “ that the Santa 
Anna did not get to England — or somewhere else — after 
all? Even in the Doldrums calms don't last forever." 

Well, I think I do know that she didn't get to Eng- 
land," said Tom, quietly. “ My father, he thought of 
that, and. he went to a lawyer chap, and pretended as 
there was somebody on board the Hecate as belonged to 
him — a great-uncle by his mother's side — and that he 
wanted to find out what had become of him — a proof of 
his death — and he got the lawyer chap to write to the 
Ad m i ral tv . " 

“ And did the lawyer chap get an answer?" 

“ Yes, after waiting a long time, and writing five or six 
letters — it cost my father a matter of twoorthree pounds, 
one way and another. Well, the answer was as the He- 
cate sailed from Portsmouth on such a date in 1743, re- 
victualed at Nassau, and touched at Jamaica; but as after 
that nothing more had been heard of her, she must un- 
doubtedly have perished with all on board. Now, doesn't 
it stand to reason that as nothing has been heard of the 
Hecate, none of the crew — and all of 'em went on board 


33 


A QUEER RACE. 

the Santa Anna, you know — that none of her crew ever 
got to land? — because the first thing they'd naturally do 
would be to inform the Admiralty and claim their pay. 
As for the officers, they would, of course, report them- 
selves, and tell how the Hecate was lost." 

“Of course; and the fact that nothing has been heard 
of her or any of her crew shows, in my opinion, that the 
fate which the Admiralty think overtook the Hecate over- 
took the Santa Anna — she perished with all on board, 
perhaps in a cyclone; or she may have struck on a sunken 
rock or got burned. Your supposition, Bolsover, that 
every man-jack of her crew died of thirst, and that she is 
either afloat or aground with all her treasure on board is 
— excuse me for saying it — all bosh; and the sooner you 
get the idea out of your head, the better it will be for 
your peace of mind." 

“ I am sorry to hear you say so, Mr. Erie," answered 
the boatswain, with the air of a man who, though shaken 
in his opinion, refuses to be convinced. “I am sorry to 
hear you say so. I cannot argufy like a man of 'ead and 
edycation, and facts is, may be, against me. Well, I 
don't care a hang for the facts; and I ain as cock-sure as 
if I saw her this minute as the galleon is a ship yet, or 
leastways the hull of one, and as I shall set eyes on her 
afore I die, and carry off as much of that there treasure 
as will make me as rich as a Jew. If you won't go shares 
with me, so much the worse for you — that is all as I can 
say." 

Though I saw that it was useless to continue the dis- 
cussion, I wanted to put one more question. 

“Did your father say anything to the Admiralty about 
the chaplain's statement?" I asked. 

“ No, he didn't," answered Tom, almost savagely; “he 
wasn't such a darned fool. He had too much white in 
his eye, my father had, to put the Admiralty on the track 
of that there treasure-ship; and as it was nigh on a hun- 
dred years after she disappeared, it would have done no 
manner of good to anybody." 

The subject then dropped, and it was not resumed un- 
til several rather strange things had come to pass, and 
Bolsover was in a more placable mood. 


A QUEER RACE. 


37 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE FEVER SHIP. 

We were now on the verge of the tropics; the weather 
was perfect, the wind fair, and the sea, covered with 
small, white -crested waves, chasing each other in wild 
revelry, superb; the days were delightful; the nights, 
lighted up by a great round moon, gloriously serene. 

The mere fact of living became a pleasure; the noon- 
day's heat was tempered by a balmy breeze, and basking 
in the sun, and living continually in the open air (I slept 
on deck), health tingled to my fingers' ends. 

It was a pleasure to feel the brave ship surging through 
the sea, and to watch her great sails as they bellied to 
the breeze. For days together no sailor had need to go 
aloft, and one day was so like another that time seemed 
to stand still. Yet in this very monotony there was an 
inexplicable charm; it acted as a spiritual anodyne, ban- 
ishing care, and lulling the mind to sleep. I ceased to 
think about my future, and Liverpool and business were 
so remote that they might never have been. Even Amy 
receded into the far distance, and it was hard to realize 
that I had once dreamed of marriage and suffered from 
the pangs of disappointed love. 

Why, I often asked myself, had I not been brought up 
as a soldier or sailor instead of an underwriter? And I 
wmndered how people could dislike the sea. True, there 
were sometimes storms, and the weather was not always 
serene; but, after all, storms were few and far between, 
and I felt sure that the hardships and perils of a seaman's 
life were grossly exaggerated. Only just before I left 
Liverpool, I met a man who had crossed the Atlantic half 
a dozen times without so much as encountering a gale of 
wind; and it was a notorious fact that Al hardwood ships, 
well commanded a-nd manned, and not too deep in the 
water, seldom came to grief. 

I one day talked in this strain to Captain Peyton. I 
said t hat I doubted whether a mau was in greater danger 
on board a good ship than inside a good house, and that 
life on the ocean wave was far pleasanter than life ashore. 

“ I don't mean, of course, on board a war-ship in time 


38 A QUEER RACE. 

of war,” I added, remembering the experience of poor 
Mr. Hare. 

“ You think so because we have had such a pleasant 
voyage and made such good weather, so far,” returned 
the skipper, with a smile, “ and I am bound to say that 
sailing in these latitudes is pleasant. Yoi^ would think 
differently, though, if you had ever faced a stiff gale in 
the North Atlantic, or tried to double Cape Horn in a 
snow-storm. And I don't agree with you about there 
being no more danger at sea than ashore. A landsman 
may live a long life without being once exposed to seri- 
ous peril. A seaman can hardiy make one long voyage 
without running serious risks. Not to speak of storms 
and cyclones, sunken rocks and unlighted shores, never a 
nightpasses that does not bring the possibility of a col- 
lision. The unexpected plays a far more important part 
at sea than ashore; so much so, that a prosperous, pleas- 
ant voyage always makes me a bit uneasy ” 

“ Like this, for instance?” 

“ Exactly. Like this. I cannot help thinking it is 
too good to last, and that Fortune is preparing us some 
scurvy trick. Who can tell? We may be run down in 
the night, or have foul weather before morning. All the 
same, I like my calling. Its very uncertainty is an at- 
traction; a true seaman likes it none the less for its ele- 
ment of danger; and I don't know that I dislike an oc- 
casional storm. There is real pleasure in commanding a 
stout, well-found, well-manned ship in a gale of wind.” 

“ I can well believe it — for a born sailor like you. You 
are of an adventurous disposition, I think, Captain Pey- 
ton.” 

“ I was once. But I am too old now to seek advent- 
ures; they must seek me.” 

“Well, I begin to think I should like a few advent- 
ures. My life has been desperately tame so far.” 

“ Has not somebody said that adventures are to the ad- 
venturous? You will, maybe, have a bellyful before you 
get back to Liverpool. Who knows ?'\ 

“Ay, who knows? I hope they will be agreeable, 
though.” 

“ I don't think I could undertake to guarantee that,” 
said the skipper, with a laugh. “Adventures are like 
babies — you must take them as they come. Step into my 


39 


A QUEER RACE. 

cabin and let us have a game of chess and a glass of grog. 
Everything is going on smoothly, and it is the first offi- 
cer's watch.” 

I have already mentioned how we amused ourselves, 
and that as there was always something going on we never 
suffered from ennui . We had excitement, too, of a very 
mild sort, though often rather intense while it lasted; 
nothing more tiian exchanging numbers with passing 
ships, and so ascertaining their names — when they came 
near enough, which was not always. In point of fact, 
we had only exchanged numbers with four ships since we 
sailed; we had, however, passed a good many in the early 
part of our voyage, and when a vessel was sighted, it was 
always a matter of speculation and discussion whether 
she would come within signaling distance or not. The 
further we got, however, the rarer these meetings became, 
and for several days past we had not seen a single sail. 

So, when, on the morning after my talk with Captain 
Peyton, one of the mates (a man with wonderfully good 
eyes), sweeping the horizon with his glass, announced 
that he could just see the topmast of some ship away to 
windward, there was quite a flutter of excitement. We 
passengers had our binoculars out in a moment, though, 
as our eyes were not quite so keen as those of the second 
mate, it was some time before we could make out, in the 
far distance, a couple of sticks that seemed to be emerging 
from the water, which Bucklow (the mate), a few min- 
utes later, declared to be the masts of a brig. 

We went on staring our hardest, and in the end were 
rewarded by seeing the hull of a large ship rise slowly 
from “the bosom of the deep/’ 

“ A brig under bare poles !” exclaimed Captain Peyton, 
who was one of the gazers. “Ko; she has her fore- 
course and fore-topmast-staysail set. But what on earth 
is she doing, and where steering?” 

I had been asking myself the same questions, for the 
brig’s movements were most eccentric; she wobbled about 
in every direction, as if she could not make up her mind 
toward which point of the compass she wanted to sail. 

“Are the people aboard of her all asleep, I wonder?” 
asked the captain. “ Pun up our number, Mr. Chance” 
(the third mate). “We shall may be pass near enough 
to exchange signals.” 


40 


A QUEER RACE. 

“Halloo!” shouted Bucklow, the sharp-eyed. “ There 
is something wrong yonder.” 

“ What is it?” Asked everybody else, pointing his gluss 
in the same direction as that of the mate. 

“The Union Jack upside down.” 

“A signal of distress! And she does not give her 
number,” said the skipper. “ Something very wrong, I 
should say. Alter the ship's course a point, Mr. Buck- 
low. We will run under her bows and hail her.” 

When we were near enough, the captain took his 
speaking trumpet and hailed. But there came no an- 
swer. We could see nobody on deck; there was not even 
a man at the wheel. 

“Queer!” said Captain Peyton, after he had hailed a 
second and third time. “I must go aboard and see 
what is up. Clear away the lee-quarter boat, Mr. 
Chance. Will you go with me, Mr. Erie?” turning to 
me. “Who knows that this is not the beginning of an 
adventure ?” 

“It is an adventure,” I answered! “ Thanks for the 
offer. I will go with you gladly.” 

So the sails were backed, the ship brought to, and the 
boat being lowered, we slipped into her and were quickly 
alongside the brig. As another hail produced no effect, 
one of the four seamen who were with us climbed up the 
fore-chains and threw us a rope, up which Peyton, my- 
self, and two of the seamen swarmed, one after the other, 
hand over hand. 

“ Anybody on board, Bill?” asked the captain, as he 
put his foot on the deck. 

“Not as far as I can see,” said the seaman who had ' 
thrown us the rope. “ But there's some very queer smells 
knocking about.” 

“ Let us take a turn round the deck, and then we will 
go below. It looks as if the crew had deserted her. Why, 

I wonder? She seems all right and tight; and if her rig- 
ging is all sixes and sevens, that's easily accounted 

Halloo! What’s that in the lee-scuppers, abaft the main- 
mast, there?” 

“It looks like a bundle of old clothes,” said Bill. 

“ It's a man's body; turn it round, Bill.” 

Bill lifted the body up and propped it in a sitting post- 
ure against the bulwark. 


41 


A QUEER RACE . 

All gave back exclamations of dismay. It was the most 
revolting sight I had ever set eyes upon; the face was 
putrid, swollen, and almost black. One eye was wide 
open; the other, together with a part of the cheek, had 
been eaten away. One of the poor wretch's arms having 
been stretched out as he fell, had stiffened as he died* 
and now pointed its yellow and almost fleshless fingers at 
Captain Peyton. 

“ God bless me!" he exclaimed, in an awe-struck voice. 
“ I do believe it's a fever ship!" 

“ You surely don't mean that all the crew have died of 
fever?" 

“ I am afraid so; but we will soon see." 

There were two houses on deck, one of them being 
evidently the master's quarters. Peyton opened the door 
and peered in fearfully. I looked over his shoulder. In 
the bunk lay a blackened corpse; a troop of hideous rats 
gnawing at the face. On the floor was another corpse and 
more rats. 

The captain drew back with a shudder, and closed the 
door. 

“ Yes," he said, “they are all dead, sure enough. I 
wonder where she hails from and what her cargo is? If 
I could only get a look at the manifest, or the logbook! I 
dare say they are in the poor skipper's cabin, and I am 
not going there again. We will just have a peep at the 
hold, though. No harm in that." 

As he spoke, he slipped down the hatchway, and in 
five minutes came back with the news that she was tim- 
ber laden. 

“ Does anybody know her name?" be asked. 

“ Yes," says Bill; “it is on the binuacle and the wheel 
— Lady Jane." 

“ I know her," I said, drawing on my recollection of 
“ Lloyd's Register." “She belongs to Hart & Coverdale, 
of Liverpool — master, Williamson; built in Nova Scotia 
about ten years ago, if I remember rightly. I think we 
once insured her for a voyage to Honduras and back." 

“That's it; I thought so. She hails from Belize — 
that is where they got the fever, no doubt — and her cargo 
consists of mahogany and logwood. A valuable cargo 
that, Mr. Erie. What do you think she is worth, now — 


42 A QUEER RACE. 

ship, cargo, and everything; lock, stock, barrel, and 
clinker?” 

“ Speaking roughly, I should say from fifteen to 
twenty thousand pounds.” 

“ And she’s a derelict. Nearly all that money would 
go to the owners, with a thumping share to the officers 
and crew; and I am part owner.” 

“ If you take her into port ” 

“And that is what 1 mean to do. One way and an- 
other, it would bring me a few thousands — anyhow, 
enough, with what I have, to make me independent for 
life, and be a nice provision for the wife and children 
when I die. Yes; I will take the Lady Jane into port — 
if I can,” 

“ But, surely. Captain Peyton, you will not put any of 
your crew on board? Why, she is a regular pest-house; 
and the sooner I am off her the better I shall be pleased.” 

“Only a couple of volunteers to take the wheel, turn 
and turn about. But once here they must stay here. 
There will be no communication whatever between the 
two ships, no more than if they were a hundred miles 
apart. The two men who volunteer shall bring their own 
water and provisions, so that the risk they run will be of 
the very slightest.” 

“Do you think anybody will volunteer?” 

“ You will see when we get back. Yes, I shall take 
the Lady Jane in tow, and if the weather holds good, I 
wil! have her at Nassau in ten days or less.” 

“ And if the weather does not hold good?” 

“ Then we shall have to cast her off.” 

“And you really do not think that in all this there is 
any risk?” 

“ For the two men who come aboard there may be some 
slight risk of infection; but for us, none whatever. The 
fever cannot fly over the water or creep along the haw- 
sers. Besides, I never knew one ship take yellow fever 
from another. It is a land disorder, and ships bring it 
with them from places where it is epidemic. They never 
get it at sea.” 

“ You think it is yellow fever, then?” 

“ Of course; what else can it be? I saw it at once when 
Bill turner! that poor devil over. He must have died on 


43 


A QUEER RACE. 

deck and rolled into the scupper. And now, if you please, 
we will return to the Diana. 

I said no more, yet I could not help feeling that Captain 
Peyton was making a mistake, which might cost us dear. 
He was letting greed obscure his usually clear judgment. 
The moment he had ascertained the Lady Jane's char- 
acter, he should have got out of her way as quickly as 
possible. The idea of having a pest-ship trailing after us 
for ten days — more likely fourteen — was to me simply 
horrible. I did not forget that I was supposed to be proof 
against yellow fever; yet the fact, if fact it were, gave me 
no comfort, and I returned to the Diana full of uneasy 
thoughts and gloomy forebodings. 

The unexpected was happening with a vengeance! 


CHAPTER VIII, 

THE FIRST VICTIM. 

As soon as we were on board the Diana the captain gave 
every man who had been with him a glass of grog, and 
after taking one himself, sprinkled us all with carbolic 
acid and water, and ordered Bill Bailey (the quarter- 
master, who had handled the corpse) to change his clothes, 
and disinfect those he had worn by damping them with a 
similar mixture, and hanging them up in the sun until 
they were dry. 

This done, Peyton called the crew together and made 
them a little speech. He said that the Lady Jane car- 
ried a very valuable cargo, and that if we towed her into 
port the salvage would produce something very band- 
some, of which every seaman on board would be entitled 
to a share. With proper precautions, he did not think 
there was any risk worth mentioning, and he reckoned 
that they could easily reach Nassau in ten days. There 
was, however, one difficulty. If the Lady Jane was taken 
in tow, somebody would have to go on board to steer her. 
Two hands would be enough. They could take the 
wheel turn and turn about. There was no denying that 
they would run a certain amount of risk; but if they took 
their own water and provisions, and slept on deck, he 
felt sure they would be quite safe. There was no anti- 
dote for infection like sea air. At the same time he 
would use neither compulsion nor persuasion. If any- 


44 


A QUEER RACE. 

body chose to volunteer, that would be another matter; 
and the two men who did so should receive, over and 
above their share of the salvage, fifty pounds apiece. 
Were any of them disposed to volunteer on these condi- 
tions? 

The question was answered by a shout, and at least two 
thirds of the crew volunteered on the spot. 

“Didn't I tell you?" said Peyton, turning to me with 
a smile. “ All right, lads! But I only want two; can- 
not spare more, and two will be quite enough. We must 
draw lots. Mr. Bucklow, write down the name of every 
man who is willing to undertake the job on a slip of 
paper, put the slips iuto a hat, and then Mr. Erie will, 
perhaps, oblige us by drawing two at random, and the 
names on them will be those of the two lucky ones." 

Lucky ones, indeed! 

The names were written. I drew two slips, and an- 
nounced, amid the breathless attention of the crew, that 
the winners were Harry Smithers and Jack McKean. 
Both threw up their caps with delight; the others looked 
bitterly disappointed, and the curses they vented on their 
ill-luck were loud and deep. 

After this a couple of hawsers were passed from the 
stern of the Diana to the bows of the Lady Jane; the for- 
lorn hope (very forlorn, I feared), amply provided with 
water and provisions, went on board the derelict, and the 
fever ship was taken in tow. 

I have already mentioned that the Diana had an auxil- 
iary screw. It was, however, very small, and seldom used 
— only, in fact, when there was a dead calm or excep- 
tionally bad weather. So far, it had not been used at all, 
and our coal supply being unusually low (owing to our 
carrying a full cargo of merchandise), Peyton would 
probably not have put the Diana under steam at all had 
we not fallen in with the fever ship. But as it is ex- 
tremely difficult for a vessel under sail to tow another, 
he ordered the screw to be slipped and steam to be got up. 
It was, however, quite evident that our progress in any 
circumstances would be slow, and that if a gale of wind 
sprung up we should have to abandon our prize. Nobody 
knew this better than Peyton. 

“ What will you do with the Lady Jane when you get 
her to Nassau?" I asked him. 


45 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Batten down the hatches and fumigate her with 
sulphur; then put a crew aboard, bend fresh sails to her, 
and send her home under charge of Mr. Bucklow. If 
there should be any fever-germs left — and I don't believe 
there will be — the cold will soon kill them.” 

Had I been unduly alarmed, after all? There was no 
communication between the two ships; it was hardly pos- 
sible for the infection to fly across the streak of water 
that separated them; and yellow fever being generally 
confined to certain localities, the sea must necessarily be 
unfavorable to its development. 

When two days passed and nobody seemed any the 
worse — not even Bill Bailey, who had handled the dead 
body — I began to think that I had been unduly alarmed; 
my spirits revived, and albeit none of us passengers (nor 
probably any of the crew) particularly liked the prox 
imity of the fever ship, we soon ceased to trouble about 
her, and our lives went on as usual. 

In the meanwhile the wind had fallen, and though 
every stitch of canvas was spread, we could not make 
more than four knots an hour, even with the help of our 
tiny screw, much to Peyton’s annnoyance. 

“ At this rate,” he said, “ we shall not reach the Ber- 
mudas for two or three weeks. However, it might be 
worse. If it had come on to blow, we should have had 
to cast the Lady Jane off; and if we were quite becalmed 
we should soon be without coal. I wish Nassau was a 
few hundred miles nearer. It is a good stretch out of 
our way.” 

The responsibility he had incurred by deviating from 
his course was evidently preying on his mind. If all 
went on smoothly, if he got safely to Nassau and disposed 
of the Lady Jane to advantage, or sent her home, good 
and well — his co-owners would be more than satisfied, 
and praise his enterprise and pluck, and he would put 
money in their pockets and his own. But if, after pro- 
longing his voyage two or three weeks, he had to aban- 
don his prize, they would probably have something to say 
that he might not quite like. 

So far as I was personally concerned, I had no objection 
in the world to make a call at the Bermudas. Not know- 
ing when, if ever, I should be able to make another long 
voyage, I wanted to see all I could. 


46 


A QUEER RACE. 


One of my greatest pleasures was an early walk round 
the Diana's deck. There being none of the fair sex on 
board, we had no need to study propriety; and I gener- 
ally rose with the sun, slipped on a pair of pyjamas, and 
paddled about the deck with naked feet. As often as not 
I appeared even without the pyjamas, and jumping over- 
board at the bows, swam to the stern and climbed up the 
ship’s side by a rope. 

Rather a ticklish operation; for if you don't seize the 
rope at the right moment you may be left behind, and 
swimming after the ship under sail is by no means easy, 
and may be dangerous. Before she could be brought to 
and a boat lowered, you might easily be drowned or gob- 
bled up by a shark. 

Captain Peyton several times warned me of the risk I 
ran bv this proceeding. 

“ You will be missing your tip one of these days,” he 
said, “and then look out! If the ship has much way on 
her, it may be half an hour or more before you get help.” 

But as I never missed my tip, I thought I nevershould; 
and with practice the feat became so easy that I grew 
confident and careless, although I did not end, as Peyton 
said I should, by “missing my tip.” 

One morning, shortly after we had discovered the Lady 
Jane, I rose, if anything, a little earlier than usual, was 
on deck just as the sun began to rise, and diving over the 
bows as usual, struck out. leisurely for the stern, which, 
as the ship and myself were moving in opposite direc- 
tions, I reached in a few seconds. Raising my head, I 
prepared to make a dash at the rope. 

“ It was not there! I had forgotten to order one to be 
thrown out, and I was not sure that anybody had seen 
me go into the water. I shouted to the man at the wheel, 
but he did not hear, and the next moment the ship had 
forged ahead. There wns nothing for it but to climb up 
the bows of the Lady Jane. Better risk taking the fever 
than be drowned. 

She was rather low in the water, or I do not think I 
should have managed it, and I was greatly helped by the 
loose end of a bolt-rope which hung down from the bow- 
sprit. As I struggled up, knocking myself about a good 
deal in the effort, I happened to cast an eye on the haw- 


47 


A QUEER RACE. 

ser nearest to me, and fancied I saw something black 
moving along it toward the Diana. 

What on earth " I could not spare a hand tomb 

my eyes, so I shut and opened them by wa\r of squeezing 
out the water, and looked again. 

There could be no mistake about it. The black tiling 
was a rat, and it was followed by a lot more rats. They 
were running along the rope in regular procession — 
scores of them — and when I got over the bulwark I found 
ever so many more, waiting for their turns. When the 
hideous things saw me they ran away squeaking. I 
shuddered, for I knew what they had been feeding on; 
but my mind was just then too much occupied with my 
own concerns to take in the full significance of the in- 
cident. 1 felt rather foolish, standing stark naked in the 
bows of the Lady Jane, and did not want to add to the 
absurdity of my position by hailing the Diana and asking 
for a boat. Why should I not imitate the rats, and use 
one of the hawsers as a bridge? 

No sooner thought than done. I am a pretty fair 
gymnast, and seizing the hawser with both hands, and 
letting myself down, I moved them alternately forward 
until I reached my destination. It was still gray dawn; 
nobody had seen me, and I crept unperceived over the 
taffrail. Bill Bailey was at the wheel, and Bucklow the 
second mate, and Tom Bolsover were near the binnacle, 
deep in conversation. 

“ Good-morning!” I said, in a hollow voice, for I was 
breathless from exertion. 

“ Lord help us! One of them chaps from the Lady 
Jane!" shouted Bailey, and without more ado left the 
wheel to itself, and ran forward as fast as if our ghostly 
foe had been at his heels. His exclamation and my ap- 
pearance so scared Bolsover, that he jumped round, 
slipped on the wet deck (it had just been washed), and 
clutching at the mate in a frantic effort to save himself, 
both went down together, and the ship broaching-to at 
the same moment, they rolled, one over the other, into 
the scupper. 

“ It is only me — nothing to be alarmed about. Just 
come aboard," 1 said, bursting with laughter, as I ran 
below to dry and dress myself. 

When I looked into my glass and surveyed my body, I 


48 


A QUEER RACE. 

was not surprised at the scare I had caused. My hands 
and legs were covered with tar from the bows of the 
Lady Jane; some of the stuff had got on my face, and as 
my long and rather red hair was matted on my forehead 
and hung over my eyes, and my skin was very white, I 
looked decidedly queer and slightly diabolical, if not very 
ghost-like. 

So soon as I had made myself presentable I went on 
deck. Tliere had been a great to-do. When the ship 
broached to, the captain came out of his cabin in great 
wrath, and wanted to know what — the something or an- 
other — was up. Bucklow was excessively riled at being 
rolled into the scupper, and called the boatswain a darna- 
tion old woman, to Tom’s great disgust; and Bill Bailey 
received a severe reprimand for deserting his post and 
letting the ship broach to. 

“I thought it was one of them chaps from the Lady 
Jane come to life, or may be Yellow Jack himself,” 
pleaded the quarter-master. 

“ And if it had been, that was no reason for letting the 
ship broach to,” said the captain, severely; but when his 
momentary fit of anger was over, he laughed as heartily 
as the others; and for the rest of the day all were enjoy- 
ing the joke, and talking about the apparition of Yellow 
Jack. 

Ah, me! It was the last bit of fun we had on board 
the Diana. 

In talking the affair over with Peyton, I mentioned 
the portentous sight I had just seen. He seemed much 
disquieted. 

“Bats!” he exclaimed. “Rats running along the 
hawsers? Are you quite sure?” 

“Quite; and the procession continued until 1 got on 
board and disturbed them.” 

“This may have been going on all night,” he said, 
uneasily. “It must be stopped. I want nothing from 
the Lady Jane on board this ship, least of all rats.” 

No wonder he felt uneasy. The rats I saw had been 
living for days on the bodies — now thrown overboard — 
which we had seen on the Lady Jane’s deck, and now 
they were among us, running round the ship, nibbling at 
our food, scampering over the water-casks. If it were possi- 


40 


A QUEER RACE. 

ble to convey the infection, they would surely convey it — 
had, perhaps, conveyed it already. 

The captain asked me to keep what I had seen to my- 
self — he feared it might alarm the crew — and the car- 
penter received orders to fix on each of the hawsers a 
round board, studded with nails, to prevent an invasion 
of rats from the Lady Jane. 

“ I have heard of rats running along ropes before now,” 
he said to the carpenter, “and it is just as well co be on 
the safe side.” 

I made no further remark, but I much feared that it 
would prove another case of shutting the stable door when 
the steed was stolen. My worst forebodings revived, and 
I turned in that night with a heavy heart. After lying 
awake several hours, I sunk into a dream -haunted sleep. 
My dreams were all about rats. I saw the procession 
over again; saw the little black demons crawl along the 
hawser and sweep in thousands over the deck; saw the 
watch fighting with them; and Peyton, coming out of his 
cabin to see what was the matter, the creatures fell 
upon him, and in a few minutes there was nothing left 
but a skeleton. 

When I awoke the sun was shining, and a huge rat sat; 
on the side of my bunk. For a moment I thought that 
I still dreamed, but as I moved and stirred the bedclothes 
it jumped on the floor with a squeak and scurried out of 
my sight. 

The first rat I had seen on board the Diana, and no 
doubt one of the horde from the fever ship. As likely as 
not, it had been playing about my bunk and running 
over my bed all night. 

My fellow-passengers were all early risers, though not 
quite so early as myself, and I found them at breakfast, 
Peyton, as usual, at the head of the table. 

“Halloo!” cried Bulnois, the young fellow who was 
voyaging in search of health. “ I hope you are not out 
of sorts. I never knew you late for breakfast before. 
You are not an eaily bird this morning, and if you had 
been you would not have picked up a worm. No worms 
on board the Diana, only rats and apparitions of Yellow 
Jack — ha, ha!” 

“ Rats! rats! What do you mean, Bulnois?” 


50 


QURhJR RACE . 


“ You have not seen any, then! We have — lots — ex- 
cept the captain here; he has not.” 

I glanced at Peyton, and felt sure, from his uneasy, 
anxious look, that, despite his denial, he, too, had been 
' visited by one or more of our unwelcome guests. 

“ I saw one as I turned in last night,'* went on Bul- 
nois, “and there were two whoppers on the floor this 
morning; and Robinson found one in his shoe, did you 
not, Robinson?” 

“ Rather! And it gave me a scare, too. I was put- 
ting on my boot when I felt something soft; but it bit 
hard, I can tell you.” 

“Got hold, did it?” I said, with assumed carelessness. 

“Rather! Stuck its sharp teeth into my big toe. But 
I had my revenge. • I kicked the beggar off, and then 
knocked it on the head with my other boot. Where do 
they all come from, Captain Peyton? There did not use 
to be any on board; you said so yourself.” 

“I did not think there were; but rats are very unac- 
countable creatures. You can never tell. Two or three 
pairs may have come aboard at Liverpool, and been in- 
creasing and multiplying down m the hold. You have no 
idea how fast they breed. 

“ Gad! if two or three pairs have increased into two or 
three hundred since we left Liverpool, they do breed fast, 
and no mistake,” returned Bulnois, dryly. 

“ Two or three hundred ! Nonsense! I don’t believe 
there or two or three dozens.” 

“Aren’t there, though! Why, they are all over the 
ship; and if some are so bold as to come into our bunks 
and crawl into our hoots, just think how many must there 
be down in the hold. I hope they won’t eat through the 
sides and sink us. that’s all.” 

At this point Peyton (whom the conversation evidently 
annoyed) remembered that his presence was required on 
deck, and left us to ourselves, on which we had a long 
talk and many stories about rats; but I made no mention 
of the strange sight I had seen on the occasion of my late 
involuntary visit to the Lady Jane.” 

The captain afterward told me “on the quiet ” that 
(as I suspected) he had seen several rats in his cabin, only 
it would not do for him to admit the fact. 

“We must make the best of it,” he said; “ 


no use 


51 


A QUEER RACE. 

crying over spilt milk, you know. If we were to cast oil 
the Lady Jane we could not get rid of the rats; and it 
may be a false alarm, after all. I really don’t see what 
harm they can do.” 

But this was all make-believe — whistling to keep his 
courage up. I knew that in his heart Peyton thought 
just as I did, and feared the worst;. 

When I went on deck next morning I missed Bill 
Bailey, and asked Bucklow what had become of him. 

“ On the sick-list.” 

“ What is the matter?” 

(( I don’t know; but I believe he is very sick. The 
captain has seen him; he will tell you.” 

We had no surgeon on board, and the captain, in addi- 
tion to his other functions, acted as doctor. When I saw 
him, I asked what was wrong with Bailey — if it was any- 
thing serious. 

“ Very serious, 9 was the answer. 

“ It surely is not ” 

“1 am sorry to say it is.” 

“ But is it not possible you maybe mistaken? Are you 
certain that your diagnosis is correct?” 

Do I know a case of yellow fever when I see it, you 
mean? I ought. When I was second officer of the Neva, 
one of the Royal Mail steamers, you know, we once had 
seventy deaths from yellow fever within a week of leav- 
ing St. Thomas’. Yes, Bailey has got it; and I fear it 
will go hard with him, poor fellow!” 

It did go hard with him. Forty-eight hours later the 
quartermaster’s body was stitched up in his hammock and 
committed to the deep, and at the captain’s request I read 
the funeral service over the poor fellow’s watery grave. 

The first victim,” I thought. “ Who will be the 
next?” 


CHAPTER IX. 

YELLOW JACK. 

Like a good many other men, Peyton did not like to 
own, even to himself, that he had made a mistake; and 
as I could well see, he was continually casting about in 
his mind for reasons that might justify him for taking 
the Lady Jane in tow, in forgetfulness of the French say- 


52 


A QUEER RACE. 

in g, Qui s’excuse s' accuse. His very anxiety to clear him- 
self from charges which, as yet, nobody had made, showed 
that he was conscious of having committed a grevious 
error. . 

“ I am very sorry about poor Bailey,” hesaid. “ let, 
after all, it is no more than was to be expected.” 

“I don’t quite see ” 

“ Don’t you remember him handling that body on the 
Lady Jane? It must have been then he caught the 
fever.” 

“ But that is two days since. He was thoroughly dis- 
infected; and if he had caught the fever then it would 
have shown itself much sooner. I have always under- 
stood that yellow fever is exceedingly rapid in its ac- 
tion.” 

“ Generally; but there are exceptions. He must have 
caught it that time on the Lady Jane; and would have 
died just the same whether we had taken the ship in tow 
or not. How else could he have caught it?” 

“ The rats. Bolsover tells me that they actually 
swarm about the water-casks; and you know what that 
means.” 

“Curse the rats!” Peyton exclaimed, passionately. 
“ It’s rats, rats, all day long. I think you have all got 
rats on the brain. Are you quite sure, now, you did see 
them coming across the hawsers?” 

“Quite. Besides, if they are not from the Lady Jane, 
how did they get on board ?” 

“Anyhow, it’s not the rats that gave poor Bailey the 
fever; he got it in the L idy Jane, and nobody can blame 
me for that. Who could tell beforehand that she was a 
fever ship?” 

To this query I made no answer. I knew what he 
was driving at. In the event of the fever spreading, 
he wanted to make out that it had been brought on board 
by Bailey; that the rats had nothing to do with it. I felt 
annoyed that he should thus try to wriggle out of the re- 
sponsibility he had incurred by taking the Lady Jane in 
tow, and only the fact of my being his guest prevented me 
from saying so. If he had been less "obstinate, he would 
have cast her off at once, for besides taking us out of 
our course, she was greatly impeding onr progress; and 
with fever on board our own vessel, and a fever ship in 


53 


A QUEER RACE. 

tow, no port in that part of the world would receive us; 
what he would do with the Lady Jane in such circum- 
stances as these was a mystery. 

Bailey's death naturally caused great alarm, both 
among the passengers and crew. The captain tried to 
persuade them that it was merely an isolated case, and 
that he had adopted such precautions as would prevent 
the pest from spreading. I don’t think, though, that 
anybody believed him. I know I did not. The rats, X 
felt sure, would infect the whole ship, and it was quite 
possible that the fate of the Lady Jane's crew would be 
ours— and mine — for the more imminent grew the danger 
the less confident I felt in my supposed immunity. 

We dined at half-past five on board the Diana. The 
party generally consisted of the seven passengers, the 
captain (who presided) and sometimes the first or second 
officer. The bell rang fifteen minutes before the time, 
and again at the half hour, when, as a rule, we were all 
in our places, except Bulnois, who was in the habit of 
unduly prolonging his afternoon nap, and about every 
other day had to be wakened up by a special messenger. 

This happened on the day Bailey was buried, and the 
conversation with the captain which I have just described 
took place. 

“ Where is Mr. Bulnois?" asked Peyton, when we were 
all seated. “Asleep, as usual, I suppose. Steward, 
send a bov to rouse him up, and say that dinner is on the 
table." 

Just as we were beginning with our soup, the boy 
came back to say that Mr. Bulnois was very ill — had a 
bad headache, was very sick, and could not come to din- 
ner. 

We all looked at each other. My companions turned 
pale, and I have no doubt I did; for the same thought 
passed through every mind — Bulnois had got yellow fever. 
It was like the handwriting on the wall at Belshazzar's 
feast. The foe was inside the citadel, and each of us 
was mentally asking himself whose turn it would be- next. 

The captain was the first to break the silence. 

“A trifling indisposition, I expect," he said, with an 
affected nonchalance which matched ill with his anxious 
face. “ Bulnois is subject to headaches, I think. I will 
go and see him presently, and give him something that 


54 A QUEER RACE. 

will do him good. Very likely an attack of indiges- 
tion.” 

The cantain looked round as if to invite an expression 
of opinion in accordance with his own, hut nobody 
answered a word, and the dinner was finished hurriedly, 
and in deep, almost solemn silence. But when Peyton 
left us to see poor Bulnois, every tongue was loosened. 

“ He is among us now, and no mistake,” said Robinson. 
“Who?” 

Yellow Jack. You must have brought him when 
you went aboard the Lady Jane the other day, Erie. 9 

“'That is impossible. I was not there two minutes, 
and I came back as naked as I went. Besides, if I had 
brought it, i should have been the first victim.” 

“Well, how is it, then? I can understand that quar- 
ter-master getting it. But Bulnois never went near him, 
and at luncheon he seemed quite well, and eat with good 
appetite.” 

“HI tell yoiVwhat it is,” put in Saunders, the bank 
clerk, a quiet, observant little fellow. “It's those rats.” 

“Rats! What the deuce have rats to do with it?” 

“ Everything. I can see it all now. There was not a 
rat on board before Tuesday. I have inquired among the 
men, and I cannot find anybody who saw a single speci- 
men until Wednesday, and now they simply swarm; and 
was it not on Wednesday morning that the captain had 
those guards put on the hawsers to prevent rats running 
over them from the Lady Jane? Depend upon it, he 
knows, only it does not suit his purpose to say so. Have 
you not noticed how he fires up when anything is said 
about rats?” 

“ By Jove, I do believe you are right! And it all comes 
of taking that cursed fever ship in tow. Peyton deserves 
to be thrown overboard.” 

“ No, no,” I said; “ Peyton is one of the best fellows 
in the world. He acted for the best, and took every pre- 
caution. Who could foresee that rats would come aboard 
by a hawser?” 

“ He had no business to run the risk — a risk that in- 
volved others as well as himself — of taking a fever ship 
in tow; and what makes it worse, he did it for his own 
profit. We have no interest in the salvage.” 

After this I thought it discreet to let the subject drop, 


55 


A QUEER RACE . 

for in truth my friend's conduct was almost, if not alto- 
gether, indefensible. 

“ Never mind about the captain," interposed somebody. 
“What are we to do? that is the question." 

“ What can we do but grin and abide?" I answered. 
“ There is no possibility of running away." 

“ But cannot we take something — brandy or quinine; 
or do something with carbolic acid?" 

“Carbolic is merely a disinfectant; it is being used all 
over the ship already; brandy, I should think, is about 
the worst thing you could take, and quinine about the 
best. A manual of medicine I was looking at yesterday, 
in the captain's cabin, recommends strong doses of quin- 
ine as a prophylactic." 

“Let us have some!" “Where can we get it?" “Has 
the captain any?" “ How much should we take?" shouted 
the live passengers. 

I said that I believed the captain had some; and when 
he returned from seeking Bulnois they asked him for 
quinine even before they inquired after their sick friend. 

He had some, though not very much, and gave each 
man a small dose forthwith. 

Bulnois was very ill; Peyton could not deny that his 
symptoms were those of yellow fever; and if ho had de- 
nied it I should have known that he was wrong, for I had 
been reading the subject up. I had seen Bailey, and 
the moment I saw poor Bulnois (none of the other fellows 
would go near him) I recognized all the signs of the 
dread disease in its incipient stage — the shivering, the 
hot skin, the suffused eyeballs, the drunken-like aspect 
of (he eyes, and the flushed zone that encircled them. 

Poor fellow! we could do nothing for him; I doubt 
whether the ablest physician in England could have done 
anything for him. He died delirious on the second day. 

In the meantime three of the crew had fallen ill, and they, 
too, died; and after that there were several deaths every 
day; within a week of the outbreak of the fever, the fortv- 
six souls whom the Diana had on board when she sailed 
from Liverpool were reduced to twenty-five. Yet the 
virulence of the plague did not abate. It seemed as if 
we should all perish, and I do not think there wore 
more than two men aboard who believed they would 
escape. 


m 


A QUEER RACE. 

These two were Bolsover and myself. I had gone 
so much among the sick, exposing myself continually 
to the risk of contagion without suffering the least ill 
effect, that I began to think my immunity was real, after 
all, and that I ran no more risk of taking the fever than 
a man who has been effectively vaccinated runs of taking 
small-pox. 

The boatswain was like Bonaparte — he believed in his 
star. 

“ I am not afraid, Mr. Erie,” he said to me one day, 
“ my time has not come yet. I am bound to see that 
treasure-ship before I die.” 

It was about this time that Bucklow (now first officer, 
his senior being among the dead) took me to the stern, and 
pointing to the water, said, grimly: 

“ There they are, waiting for us. They have been fol- 
lowing us these last three days. 

“ They ” were five or six huge sharks, swimming in the 
wake of the ship. I looked at them for a while as if fas- 
cinated, and then with a shudder turned away. I never 
went near the taffrail that I did not look, and they were 
always close under the stern. 

As for Peyton, I thought he was going mad. He at- 
tended to his duties as diligently as ever, looked after the 
sick as well as he could, and kept the survivors of his 
ciew to their duties, took the day’s reckoning, and re- 
corded the day’s run; but he hardly ever spoke, except to 
give necessary orders. 

For hours together he would pace about the quarter- 
deck, muttering, “It's my doing! it’s all my doing! We 
shall all die! we shall all die! but my time has not come 
yet.” 

Once, when I ventured to suggest that he should cast 
the Lady Jane off (at the instance of some of the men, 
who had got it into their heads that so long as we had 
the fever ship in tow the fever would never leave us) 
he turned on me almost fiercely. 

“ No!” he exclaimed, “ I shall not cast her off. Why 
should I? What harm has she done? I am doomed — we 
are all doomed — and the salvage will be a provision for 
my wife and family. Don’t you understand? a provision 
for my wife and family, that’s why. But it’s useless to 


57 


A QUEER RACE. 

discuss the subject or give my reasons. I absolutely re- 
fuse to east the ship off; let that suffice.” 

tie was doomed, but not to die of yellow fever. 

The very next morning, when I went on deck, Buck- 
low’ told me, with a significant look, that the captain 
had been taken ili in the night, and seemed in a very 
bad way. 

I went to him at once. Bucklow spoke truly. The 
captain was, in truth, in a very bad way. He had all the 
symptoms which I now knew so well. Although the 
temperature of his cabin was nearly eighty, and his skin 
hot and dry, he shivered continually. He had a terrible 
headache, too, and, albeit still sensible, rambled at times 
in his talk, and I doubted not would soon become quite 
delirious. 

“ Yellow Jack has got hold of me now 7 ,” he said, try- 
ing tosmile. “I thought he would; but not so soon, not 
so soon. I was quite well last night. What think you 
now — is a man safer at sea or ashore? Are those advent- 
ures to your taste, Erie? You will heve more, more, 
and pleasanter ones, I hope. Sorry I asked you to come 
with me. Turned out badly, hasn't it? If I had known 
what would happen, you may be sure I would have given 
that brig a wide berth. But now it is too late; and the 
salvage, you know, will be a provision for the wife and 
children. Poor wife! poor children ! I shall never see 
them again, Erie — never again! Give them my love when 
you get home, and say I thought about them to the last. 
I knew your father; he was a very good friend; yes, a 
very good friend. I was second officer of the Orontes 
when he and your mother were passengers; you were a 
passenger too — a little chap about two years old. I re- 
member you well; used to trot you about on my shoulder." 
How did they get to St. Thomas’? That is where they 
came on board. Oh, I remember — in a falucha from 
Maracaibo; yes, that was it, in a falucha from Maracaibo. 
I say, what do you think I saw in the night?” lowering 
his voice, and looking fearfully round. “ Rats! hun- 
dreds! They ran all over the place, and played at leap- 
frog on my bed — they did — played at leap-frog on my 
bed. And I could neither touch them nor call out. 
My arms were fastened to my sides, and my tongue re- 
fused to move. And what do you think? But do»»’ttell 


58 


A QUEER RACE. 

anybody. A great yellow one — twice as big as any of the 
others — a great yellow one, with black whiskers, and 
white teeth , and fierce red eyes, came and sat on my 
chest and spat at me. It gave me the fever, curse it! 
Get dogs and cats; set traps; lay poison. Kill it! kill it! 
Kill that cursed yellow rat, or you will all die. A little 
more of that eau-de-Cologne , please; on my eyeballs this 
time. Thanks. And now I will drink again. This thirst 
is terrible. I am very ill, Erie.” 

I remained with him an hour or more, laving his head 
with eau-de-Cologne and giving him some drink, and then, 
leaving him with his boy for awhile, I went outside to 
get a breath of fresh air, the cabin being both close and 
hot. 

Bucklow was still on deck. 

“ How long will he last, do you think?” he asked. 

“ Perhaps until to-morrow,” I answered, gloomily. 
“ They have all gone on the second day, or sooner, so 
far; and Peyton has it very badly. I am afraid he will 
be wildly delirious. Somebody should be with him con- 
tinually.” 

“ You have left the boy, I suppose?” 

“ Yes; and I shall go back in a few minutes.” 

“ How long will this last, I wonder? IPs hell! PU 
tell you what, Erie. I have a great mind to cast that 
cursed brig off on my own authority. We have had no 
luck since we saw her. I am in command now. Do you 
think I might?” 

*■ Certainly. Cast her off, by all means, and let us 
make all the haste we can for Montevideo, while there’s 
somebody to navigate and sail the ship; and if ” 

“ Rats! Rats! Rats! There’s that great yellow one 
with the red eyes! I’ll catch him! I’ll catch him, if I 
die for it! Ah! he is making for the Ladv Jane, is 
he !” 

Mv God! what is that?” exclaimed Bucklow, as we 
both turned from the taffrail, over which we had been 
leaning. 

It was the captain running across the deck in his shirt, 
and at the same instant, and before either of us could raise 
a hand to stop him, he sprung on the bulwark and jumped 
into the sea. 

The mate, with ready presence of mind, threw a buoy 


A QUEER RACE. 


59 


after him, at the same time ordering the ship to be 
brought to and a boat to be lowered. 

My first impulse was to follow Peyton and try to save 
him. 

“ Don't !" said Buoklow, laying his hand on my shoul- 
der. “ He can swim better than you can. And, see, it 
would be certain death." 

The captain was swimming with powerful strokes to- 
ward the Lady Jane, in the very midst of a shoal of 
sharks. They were all round him, and even before he 
reached the brig one of the creatures turned on its back 
for the fatal bite. An agonized scream, a piteous look 
from a fever-stricken face, a swirl of the waters as the 
wild beasts of the sea fought with each other for their 
prey, and all was over. 

It seemed too terrible to be real. My brain was in a 
whirl; I felt sick and giddy; and had not Bucklow put 
his arm around me, I should have fallen on the deck. 

“ Don't give way," he said, kindly. “ Horrid sight as 
it was, it is perhaps better so. Poor Peyton has been 
spared a long agony. It was not three minutes from the 
time of his jumping overboard to his death. I*d rather 
die like that than as some of our poor fellows have died. 
Just one crunch, and it's over. Come! I am going to 
cast the brig off. I cannor bear the sight of her." 

“ Sink her, and so prevent the disasters that have be- 
fallen us from befalling others.” 

“We cannot. She is timber laden." 

“ Burn her, then." 

“I did not think of that. Yes, we will burn her; and 
those cursed rats with her, if there are any left. Will' 
you come with me? and we will set her on fire, and bring 
those two fellows off. How they have escaped. Heaven 
only knows." 

“With all my heart." 

The dingey was lowered at once, and taking with us 
matches, axes, and a carboy of turpentine, we went on 
board the Lady Jane. 

After opening the ports and hatches to make a good 
draught, we gathered together all the combustible ma- 
terial we could find, and took it to the place where the 
ship's stores were kept — cordage, spare sails, tar, and 
what not — drenched them with turpentine and' the con- 


60 


A QUEER RACE. 


tents of a cask of rum (which we found on board), put a 
second cask in the middle of the pile, fired it in several 
places, and when it was fairly alight, got into the dingey 
and returned to the Diana with Smithers and McKean. 

“ She is as dry as a bone,” said Bucklow, “ and will burn 
like matchwood.” 

“Cast her off!” he cried, as soon as we were on board. 
“By Jove, look there!” 

The hawsers were covered with rats trying to escape, 
and as they reached the guards and could get no further, 
those behind thrust the foremost into the sea. Even 
when the hawsers were loosed the rats continued their 
mad flight, and went on pushing each other to certain 
destruction. 

In a few minutes smoke and flame were coming up the 
brig’s hatchways; then the deck took fire; great tongues 
leaped up and twisted like fiery serpents round the 
masts, and the Lady Jane was all ablaze from stem to 
stern. The timber in the hold also took fire, and when 
the sea broke in and extinguished it, the loosened logs 
of wood were floated out of the hull; and as the fever 
ship disappeared, a loud cheer went up from the surviv- 
ors of the Diana’s crew. 


1 

CHAPTER X. 

MUTINY. 

Tpie destruction of the brig lightened every heart on 
board. 

Sailors are proverbially superstitious, and the scenes 
they had witnessed and the anxiety they had endured 
had made a deep impression on "the remnant of (lie 
Diana’s crew, and wound them up to a high pitch of ex- 
citement. As our misfortunes had begun with the Ladv 
Jane, the poor fellows thought they would end with her. 
Having, moreover, come to regard Captain Peyton as a 
Jonah, they looked on his tragic death as at once a judg- 
ment and an expiation, and made sure that now he was 
gone the luck would change. , 

Even Bucklow, educated man as he was, could not 
help sharing in this hallucination; and the alacrity with 
which he changed the ship’s course, and the energetic 


61 


A QUEER RACE. 

and almost cheery manner in which he gave his orders, 
showed how greatly his mind was relieved. 

I, too, was glad we had got rid of the brig— like Buck- 
low, I hated the very sight of her — but I could neither 
share in the general confidence, nor believe that in get- 
ting rid of the fever ship we had got rid of the fever. I 
was too much depressed to be hopeful, and I had read in 
one of the medical books which formed part of Peyton's 
library that a high temperature favored the development 
of yellow fever; that the most certain cure for it is cold 
weather. But during the last day or two the tempera- 
ture had risen and the wind fallen off, and as we were 
now making direct for the equator, there was every like- 
lihood of our having it still warmer. The brig, more- 
over, had done her worst, so to speak; her contiguity 
ceased to be a danger, and the chief advantage of her dis- 
appearance was that it encouraged the men and enabled 
us to make better speed; although, as our coal was nearly 
done, Bucklow thought it better to stop the engine and 
unship the screw. 

Great gains, so far as they went; but I could not be- 
lieve that they were sufficient to stay the plague. Buck- 
low was more sanguine and superstitious. 

“The omens are all good, Erie," he exclaimed, clap- 
ping me on the back. “ There has not been a fresh case 
since yesterday, except poor Peyton's; the wind is fresh- 
ing — we shall be doing six knots soon if this goes on — and 
look there! those white-bellied devils have left us." 

So they had. Not a shark was to be seen. 

1 confess that at first this rather staggered me; one can- 
not help believing just a little in omens; and dumb creat- 
ures have very subtle instincts — still how on earth can 
sharks have any ideas about yellow fever? There must 
be soma other cause. Ah! I think I have it. 

“ Yes, they are gone, sure enough," I said; “but I am 

afraid Don’t you think the burning of the brig has 

something to do with it? I have heard that sharks are 
easily scared, and the blaze and the heat, and the fall 
of burning embers into the water, might easily frighten 
much bolder animals." 

“What a croaker you are, Erie! Why cannot you let 
a fellow cherish a pleasing illusion? — if it be an illusion 
— and really, you know, I don't think it is. These creat- 


62 


A QUEER RACE. 

tires’ senses are very acute, and it is quite conceivable that 
their leaving us is a good sign.” 

“I should be glad to think so; but what do you call 
that?” I asked, pointing to the dorsal fin of a shark which 
just then appeared above the water. 

“Heaven help us! they are coming back! And what 
a monster! Five-and-thirty feet, if it is an inch! And 
there is another. How will it all end, Erie?” 

“ That is more than I can say; but I am quite sure that 
it will end neither better nor worse because those sharks 
have come back. I suppose it is their nature to follow 
in a ship’s wake.” 

But Bucklow shook his head; the incident had made a 
deep impression on him, and he evidently put more faith 
in omens than he was willing to admit. 

For the next two days, however, things did go better 
with us; there was no fresh cases, and two sailors who 
had been taken ill before the captain died seemed as if 
they might recover. At any rate, it was past the third 
day, and they were still alive, which showed, I thought, 
that the malady was losing something of its virulence. 

But the improvement was short-lived. The breeze did 
not lake us very far, and when it fell off the heat became 
intense, the two patients died, and we hud several fresh 
cases. In several instances men died without being laid 
up. There was a suppression of some of the secretions, in- 
tense pain in the limbs lasting for a few hours, and the 
sufferers were struck down on the deck. It was probably 
in this way that the poor creatures whose bodies we found 
on the Lady Jane came by their end. 

The crew, now reduced to less than a score, were sorely 
discouraged by this change for the worse. Sick of disap- 
pointed hope, they became desperate and demoralized; the 
bonds of discipline were loosened, and Bucklow could 
hardly prevail on them to work the ship. 

And no wonder. Let the reader imagine, if he can, 
what his own feelings would be if he were shut up in a 
house where a deadly and frightfully contagious disease 
was rife, where people were dying every day, and from 
which there was no possibility of escape.* 

** We shall nave trouble,” said Bucklow; “the men are 
in a very evil humor. I doubt if I shall ever get this 


G3 


A QUEER RACE . 

ship to Montevideo. However, FJl try my best, and more 
than that can no man do.” 

He kept the deck almost continually, and when he 
turned in for an hour’s sleep, Bolsover (who now acted as 
mate) took the command. These two were the only offi- 
cers left alive, and it was no longer possible to arrange the 
watches in the regular way. We had to do as well as we 
could, and I gave all the help in my power, which was not 
much, I fear, for I am no seaman. But I could keep 
them company, and now and then I took a turn at the 
wheel, for, short-handed as we were becoming, ability to 
steer might stand us in good stead. 

I was getting up one morning rather past my usual 
time, for I had turned in late the night before, when 
Bucklow came to me in a state of suppressed excitement. 

“I want you on deck,” he said. “ There is going to 
be a row. The men have got to the spirits, and are 
nearly all drunk and getting obstreperous — won’t obey 
orders. The wind is freshening, too, and unless we take 
in sail we shall be in a mess.” 

I made haste with my dressing, and followed him on 
deck forthwith, first putting a revolver in my trousers 
pocket, by way of being ready for all emergencies. 

Except the quarter-master at the wheel and a Swede, 
called Oscar, a decent, God-fearing man, all the hands 
were in the waist of the ship. They had broached a 
cask of rum, and were nearly all more or less drunk. 
Bucklow and Bolsover were remonstrating with them, 
and trying to persuade them to return to their duty and 
do as they were bid. 

The answer was a laugh of defiance and a torrent of 
abuse. 

“We’ll work no more on this ship,” shouted one fol- 

loWc “ Let her go to the bottom, and be d d to 

her.” 

“ Come, come, men, be reasonable,” remonstrated 
Bucklow. “It is very rough on you, I know; it is 
rough on all of us. But this sort of thing will do no 
good. The more you drink, the more likely you are to 
die.” 

“That’s what we want. We want to die,” hiccoughed 
a sailor, filling himself a glass of rum. “ What’s the use 
of living? Tell me that. What’s the use of living on a 


61 A QUEER RACE. 

fever ship like this ’ere? Better die of drink than he 
killed by Yellow Jack. Here goes tossing off the 
glass. “ I swear I’ll never be sober again! I’ll die 
drunk! Hip, hip, hurrah!” 

“Isay, cup’n— you calls yourself cap’n, don’t you?” 
said another, coming close up to Bucklow — “you just 
sheer off and leave us alone, or it’ll be worse for you. 
We are the masters of this ’ere ship, and we mean to do 
what we d d like!” 

The words were hardly out of the fellow’s mouth when 
Bucklow knocked him down, and then, with a gesture 
of anger and disgust, the mate turned on his heel, which 
he had no sooner done than one of the cowardly scoun- 
drels, who had crept behind him unperceived, struck him 
a terrible blow on the head with a belaying-pin. 

But he was quickly avenged. 

As Bucklow reeled and fell, l drew my revolver and 
shot his assailant dead. Then, pointing the still smok- 
ing weapon at the others, I bade them throw the cask of 
rum overboard. 

The death of their comrade had scared, if not sobered 
them, and I was obeyed on the instant. 

“ Is there any more, Bolsover?” I asked. 

“ Yes, sir; two casks.” 

“ Fetch them here and throw them overboard.” 

This, too, was done. 

In the meanwhile Oscar the Swede, and one or two of 
the men who were more sensible than the rest, had raised 
pooi’ Bucklow up and carried him into the captain’s 
cabin. He w r as badly hurt, and quite insensible. After 
doing all I could for him, bathing and plastering up the 
wound on his head, and leaving him in charge of our 
only surviving boy, I went on deck again, and found 
that those of the men who were not absolutely drunk 
and incapable were shortening sail under Bolsover’s di- 
rections. 

“You’ve frightened ’em, sir,” said the boatswain. 
“ The way you shot down that scoundrel Smithers was a 
caution.” 

“ It was done on the impulse of the moment, Bolsover; 
my revolver seemed to go off by itself,” I returned, for 
Smithers still lay where he fell, in a pool of blood. The 


05 


A QUEER RACE . 

ghastly sight made me feel decidedly uncomfortable; I 
began to think that I iiad been too hasty. 

‘‘And a. very good thing, too ,” said Bolsover. “ Don't 
let that trouble you, sir. You served the fellow right; 
the men themselves think so. To strike down Mr. Buck- 
low was worse than murder — it was treason. If anything 
happens to him, there will be nobody to navigate the 
ship, and then what shall we do?” 

“If anything happens to Mr. Bucklow! You surely 
don't think, Bolsover ” 

“ Well, that was a terrible crack on the head Smith - 
ers gave him; it's much if he ever speaks again, I 
think.” 

He never did. After remaining insensible for three 
days, the mate recovered consciousness, but not power of 
speech. He evidently wanted to say something, and 
made several vain yet desperate efforts to articulate; then 
with his eyes he bade me a pathetic farewell, pressed my 
hand, and quietly passed away. 

Peace be to his ashes! I think Bucklow's death 
affected me more than any other which had yet occurred. 
It was not merely that it left us helpless and utterly in- 
capable of taking the ship to her destination; I liked him 
personally. He was a courageous, open-hearted sailor, 
wise in council and prompt in action; and the loss of so 
many of our comrades had brought us into close compan- 
ionship. I had come to entertain a warm affection for 
him, and he was the only one left with whom I could 
converse on terms of intellectual equality. 


CHAPTER XI. 

BECALMED. 

After poor Bucklow's death, the fever became more 
virulent than ever, and if fewer died it was merely 
because fewer were left to kill. The contagion spread 
with portentous rapidity, the interval between the first 
seizure and the fatal close being often frightfully short. 

At the end of the following week two only were left — 
Bolsover and myself. Of the forty-seven who had sailed 
from Liverpool, little more than a month previously, we 
were the sole survivors. All the rest slept their long 
sleep in the fathomless depths of the wild Atlantic. 


66 


A QUEER RACE. 

What my feelings were I can hardly remember, and do 
not care to recall. I was stunned, overwhelmed, and, as 
it seemed, almost paralyzed by the stupendous nature of 
the calamity which had overtaken me, and by bitter grief 
for those who were gone. But for Bolsover I think I 
must have gone mad. He too sorrowed, in his own fash- 
ion, for our lost comrades; yet his grief seemed to sit 
lightly on him, and in his manner there was at times 
something that looked very like exultation, the cause of 
which I was at first at a loss to divine. But a casual ex- 
pression he let drop enlightened me. He regarded his es- 
cape and mine as proof that we were the destined discov- 
erers of the Santa Anna. 

Had I been less depressed, I should have been amused, 
probably have laughed at him. As it was, I thought it 
best not to answer him. You cannot argue with a mono- 
maniac. 

But on every other point, the boatswain, as usual, was 
evidently sane and practical. 

“ There is only you and me now,” he said, “ and we 
can neither handle the ship nor navigate her; but we can 
do our best. There is no more sail on her than will give 
her steering way in a light breeze, and if it comes on to 
blow we shall may be not take much harm. You can 
steer pretty well now, and we must take the wheel turn 
and turn about.” 

“ That is all very fine; but where shall we make for?” 

“ Well, I don't think as we can do better than stick to 
the course we are on, and as Mr. Bucklow last laid down 
— sou'-west by south — as far as the wind will let us.” 

“Will that bring us to Montevideo?” 

“ I don't think it will, exactly; but there or there- 
abouts, perhaps.” 

“ Have you any idea where we are?” 

“Not within a degree or two; but, from the feel, we 
should not be far from the line.” 

“Rather vague; but it is hot enough for anything, if 
that is what you mean. However, about this steering. 
It can easily be arranged as you suggest. While one 
steers the other can cook, and sleep, and keep a lookout. 
Our best chance of rescue is to attract the attention of 
some passing vessel. Can we do anything more than re- 
verse the Union Jack?” 


6 ? 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ I don’t know as we can; and keep our number always 

flying." 

“ There is still one thing we have not thought of. 
Suppose something happens — that some emergency arises 
that forces me to quit the wheel while you are asleep?” 

“ The only thing you can do in that case would be to 
lash the wheel amidships. I will show you how. But 
we must do our sleeping in the captain’s cabin. We 
shall always be within hail of each other. You have only 
to whistle, and I will come.” 

“Aren’t you afraid of sleeping in the captain’s 
cabin?” 

“ uSTot a bit. I shall not take the fever. If I could, I 
should have done so long since.” 

“ All the same, I would not throw away a chance, if I 
were you. There is no telling ” 

“ Old Tom,” as the sailors had called him, smiled su- 
perciliously, as much as to say that J did not know what 
I was talking about. 

** Very well,” I said- “Go and turn in. You had no 
sleep last night, and I had. I will take the wheel.” 

“Thank you, sir. I do feel a bit sleepy. Wake me 
up when you feel tired. Keep her off and by— as she is; 
that’s all you have to do.” 

And so I was left in sole charge of the Diana — a 
strange position for a landsman on his first voyage! A 
captain without a crew, a navigator innocent of naviga- 
tion, steering generally for the equator, and with an un- 
certain hope of sooner or later reaching the coast of 
South America, somewhere betweeen the Amazon and 
Cape Horn, and the off chance of knocking against the 
continent of Africa, or being blown into the Pacific! 

Not the sort of outlook to make a man merry, even 
though he has nothing particular on his mind; and on 
mine lay dark memories of the valley of the shadow of 
death through which I had just passed. But I was too 
busy to brood. I did not steer so well that I could do it 
automatically like an A. B. I had to give the wheel my 
closest attention and watch the ship continually, yet with 
all my pains I let her “fall off” several times, much to 
my annoyance. The wind, moreover, occasionally varied 
a point or two, thereby increasing the difficulty of my 
task. But I did not call Bolsover; I thought I would let 


68 


A QUEER RACE. 

him sleep as long as he liked; and when he voluntarily 
came to relieve me, I had been at my post nearly five 
hours. 

“ Why didn’t you call me?” lie said, reproachfully. 
“ You must be both tired and hungry. Go and get 
something to eat, and then turn in for an hour or two. 
I don’t think we shall either of us get much sleep to- 
night.” 

“Why?” 

“There is going to be a change of weather. The glass 
is going down fast, and clouds are gathering to windward. 
But we shall not get it just yet. When you have bad 
yonr grub and your sleep, we must reef the foresail. 
Then we shall be safe, I think.” 

I acted promptly on old Tom’s suggestion, for the air 
and the work had made me doth hungry and sleepy. 

When I returned from my snooze, the wind had risen 
considerably, and blew in fitful gusts; the san went down 
red, amid a mass of ominous-looking clouds, and, as 
Bolsover said, there was every likelihood of a dirty night. 
The time had come to reduce our spread of canvas, and 
the ship being under a patent foretopsail and jib, we 
lowered and reefed the former without difficulty. The 
boatswain then made all snug* battened down the hatches, 
and brought a suit of oilskin and a pair of sea-boots for 
himself, and another for me, put food, water, and grog 
within reach, and lighted the lanterns. When he had 
done all that was necessary, or, rather, all that he could, 
he joined me at the wheel, for, as he said, it would take 
two to steer, and all little enough. 

And so it proved. The wind rose every moment, and 
though we had so little sail set, the ship went through 
the water like an Atlantic liner at full speed. Then it 
lulled a little, and the rain came down as it only can come 
down in the tropics, rattling on the deck like discharges 
of musketry, and tumbling out of the scuppers in cas- 
cades. From time to time, there came a tremendous clap 
of thunder; the sky was ablaze with lightning, which 
brought every spar and rope of the ship into vivid relief, 
and cast a lurid glow on an angry sea billowed with foam- 
crested waves. But we were by no means in the center 
of the storm, else it had gone ill with us; and the rain. 


69 


A QUEER RACE. 

by keeping the sea down somewhat, probably prevented 
us from being pooped. 

When morning broke the rain was still falling, and the 
wind blowing in strong gusts; the Diana was scudding 
before it, and we were still both at the wheel; and except 
for intervals of a few minutes, when one or other of us 
snatched a morsel of food or took a pull at the bottle of 
half-water grog which Tom had put under the binnacle, 
we remained at the wheel all that day and all the next 
night. 

What distance we made in this time we had no means 
of exactly computing; but when the wind began to fall 
off, Tom tried our rate of sailing with the patent log, 
and found it to be eight knots; but our average speed dur- 
ing the thirty-six hours the gale lasted must have been 
much more, and we probably ran not less than four hun- 
dred miles. Where we were we could form only the very 
vaguest idea, for our course had been most erratic, the 
wind shifting continually. 

When the storm abated, and there was promise of bet- 
ter weather, Bolsover suggested that I should turn in. 

“ I am more used to this sort of thing than you are,” 
he said. “ I can stand it awhile longer; but you are 
about used up, I think. Lie down for an hour or two; I 
will waken you up when I want you.” 

I required no second bidding. I was utterly silent, and 
only half conscious. Without undressing, I threw myself 
on the bunk in the captain's cabin, and almost before my 
head touched the pillow was fast asleep. 

When I awoke, as it seemed to me an hour or so later, 
the sun was shining brightly, and the boatswain lay asleep 
on the floor. 

“ Halloo!” I thought. “Has old Tom deserted his 
post? Why didn't he waken me?” 

But when I looked out I saw that the sea was perfectly 
calm — not a breath of air ruffled its glassy surface— and 
the Diana lay there, as still and motionless as “a painted 
ship upon a painted ocean.” 

Clearly no need for a man at the wheel, and Tom had 
done quite right to take his rest without interrupting 
mine. 

After a wash and a walk round the ship, I went to the 
galley, kindled the fire, made lobscouse and pea soup. 


70 


A QUEER RACE. 

and when all was ready returned to the cabin to look 
after Tom. He was just opening his eyes. 

“Have you had a good sleep?” I asked. 

“ Very; and you?” 

“ Oh, pretty well. I must have had three or four 
hours, and if I had not been so hungry I should have 
gone on awhile longer.” 

“ Three or four hours! Why, bless you, Mr. Erie, you 
have slept more like thirty hours!” 

“ Nonsense, Bolsover. I know better.” 

“ Well, then, the sun is going wrong. It was a good 
deal past noon when I turned in, and ” — glancing at the 
gun — “ it cannot be much past eleven now. Yes, Mr. 
Erie, you have slept something like thirty hours, and me 
about twenty-four — and a good thing, too. We wanted 
it. When it fell calm 1 knew as the ship could take care 
of herself, so I just lashed the wheel amidships, laid my- 
self down on the cabin floor just as I was, and let you go 
on with your sleep. And now let us have some grub, for 
I am most terribly sharp-set, and that lobscouse smells as 
sweet as a posy. We may take our ease a bit now, Mr. 
Erie. This is a calm as will last, this is.” 

“ How long will it last, do you think?” 

“ The Lord only knows! May be a fortnight, may be 
three weeks. 1 have heard of calms in these latitudes — 
we must be somewhere about the doldrums — I've heard 
of 'em lasting six and seven weeks.” 

“A pleasant prospect! Why, we shall be nearly friz- 
zled! I would rather have a storm or two.” 

“ That's a sentiment as I should say amen to, if we 
had a rather more powerful crew, Mr. Erie; but with a 
ship's company of two, officers and passengers included, 
I would not pray for a gale, though I might whistle for 
a wind. With our small spread of canvas a light breeze 
would not do us much good, and it would not be safe to 
spread more, even if we could. But I'm in no hurry, 
Mr. Erie — I'm in no hurry. We've plenty of grub and 
water aboard, and I'm quite content to abide in these 
latitudes awhile longer; for it is hereabouts — or, if not 
hereabouts, a bit further south — that I expect to light on 
the Santa Anna.” v 

“ You old idiot!” I was going to say; but not wanting 
to hurt the foolish fellow's feelings or fall out with him, 


71 


A QUEER RACE. 

I merely asked why on earth he expected to find the 
treasure-ship in that particular spot, especially as we did 
not know within a thousand miles where we were. 

“We are in the doldrums," he answered, doggedly; 
“ there can be no doubt about that; and I have always 
said as if the Santa Anna was not cast away — and I 
don’t think she was cast away — I have always said she 
was somewhere in the doldrums; and I am sure I am 
right.” 

This was conclusive, and I could only say that I hoped 
we should sight the Santa Anna soon, and find her treas- 
ure aboard. 

“ Oh, we shall find the treasure, sure enough! What 
would be the use of sighting her if we didn’t?” 

CHAPTER XII. 

BEFOGGED. 

As may be supposed, life on the becalmed vessel was 
not particularly amusing. We had not much to talk 
about, and out of his own line old Tom was as ignorant 
as ail infant. There were, fortunately, plenty of books 
on board — at least a hundred of them being fiction — and 
I spent much of my time in reading, and studying, as 
well as I could with the means at my disposal, the theory 
of navigation. Then I wrote up the log-book, or rather, 
made an entry in it every day, for there was very little to 
set down. Had I not done so I should have lost count 
of time, so like was one day to another. Now and then 
I went into the engine room, and by getting up steam, 
starting and stopping the engine, I familiarized mj r self 
with its working. After awhile, I became a fairly expert 
engineer, and had our coal bunkers not been so nearly 
empty, I should have shipped the screw and steamed in 
the direction whither I thought lay the nearest land. 

Bolsover pottered about the ship, mended sails, spiiced 
ropes, washed the decks, smoked, and slept; yet he got 
very weary, and one day proposed that, by way of diver- 
sion, we should make war on the rats. I asked how he 
would do it, seeing that we had neither cats, traps, dogs, 
nor ferrets. 

“I will make the beggars drown themselves,” he said. 

And then he disclosed his plan. Rats, he explained. 


72 


A QUEER RACE. 


cannot live without water, and this was the reason why 
there were so many of them about the water-tanks, where 
they slaked their thirst by licking up the drippings and 
droppings. But as there was so much less water drawn 
than formerly, there were fewer drippings, and the rats 
being for that reason extremely dry, water would make a 
splendid bait. All that was necessary would be to take 
buckets, put a few inches of water at the bottom — mixed 
with molasses to prevent them from jumping out — fix 
long strips of wood on the sides, so balanced that when 
the rats ran along them to get at the water they would 
fall into the buckets. 

“ Very well,” I said; “try it. But in my opinion the 
less you have to do with the rats the better. If they 
have not got the fever — I wish they had — they can give 
it.” 

“Oh, I have no fear. I shall not take the fever. I 
never thought I should. Besides, that storm must have 
blown it all out of the ship.” 

So Tom arranged his buckets, put them down into the 
hold near the water-tanks, and awaited the result with 
great expectations. 

An hour later he came up in great glee, bringing one 
©f his buckets. 

“Look here!” he exclaimed. “And there’s more in 
the others.” 

In the bottom of the bucket was a writhing mass of 
rats. The water had not been deep enough to drown all 
of them, and the survivors, entangled in the molasses, 
were fighting desperately over the bodies of their com- 
rades. 

“Poor wretches!” I said. “Put them out of their 
misery, Tom!” 

“ Poor wretches! Put them out of their misery! I 
would rather put them into a bit more. Isn’t it them as 
did all the mishief? But here goes! I’ll chuck them 
into the water, and let the sharks catch ’em — if they can. 
They’ll be well met.” 

And with that Tom went to the taffrail and turned 
the bucket upside down, whereupon all the rats, dead 
and alive — all save one, a fierce-looking, gray- whiskered 
veteran, which contrived to cling to the side — fell pell- 
mell into the sea. 


A QUEER RACE. 7o 

Get out, you big devil!" said the boatswain, seizing it 
by the tail. 

But instead of getting out, the rat twisted round and 
fixed its long, sharp teeth into its captor's thumb. Tom 
dropped the bucket like a hot potato, and catching the 
creature by the neck, choked it off and sent it spinning. 

“ By , it hurts!" he exclaimed, popping the wounded 

thumb into his mouth. 

*'* You had better go and bathe it with hot water," 1 
said. “ Rat-bite are nasty things sometimes." 

ft I don't think it’s worth while. I'll put a bit of pitch 
on it. It's the best plaster I know. I never thought a 
rat could bite so keen. That gray-whiskered beggar's 
teeth were like pins and needles." 

This incident made the boatswain more inveterate 
against the rats than ever. He converted all the buckets 
in the ship into traps, and by sunset he had caught sev- 
eral dozens. He took care, however, before throwing 
them overboard, to see that they were properly drowned, 
and even then he handled the bucket in such a way as to 
prevent any possibility of a second bite. 

But the rats, though they perished, had their revenge. 

The next morning Bolsover was very ill. The thumb 
was inflamed and exceedingly painful, and he had all the 
appearance of sickening for yellow fever. I was seri- 
ously alarmed, for, despite his craze about the Santa 
Anna, old Tom was a thorough seaman and a very good 
fellow. You cannot be thrown much with a man (at any 
rate, I cannot) without getting to like him, unless he is 
absolutely repulsive, and I had got to like the boatswain. 
Besides, what should become of me if I should be left 
alone on board a big ship in mid-ocean, utterly ignorant 
of my whereabouts, only just able to steer, and hardly 
knowing one sail from another?" 

If it were possible to keep old Tom alive, I meant to 
do it, although, judging by my recent experience, the 
odds against his recovery were hundreds to one. On the 
other hand, the very fact that he had remained so long 
invulnerable showed that he possessed great resisting 
power, and rendered it probable that he would make a 
tougher fight for his life than the others had done. 

The first thing was to get my patient to keep his bed, 
which for a time he obstinately refused to do. To con- 


•74 A QUEER RACE. 

fess that lie was ill would not only have touched his pride 
and made his boastings look rather ridiculous, but 
would have gone far to falsify his predictions. So he 
pretended that his illness was a mere passing indisposi- 
tion — “ a bit of a headache” — made light of his swollen 
thumb, and insisted on getting up and helping to prepare 
breakfast. 

But the strongest will cannot long bear up under severe 
local pain and the all-pervading agonies of fever, and it 
was not long before Bolsover confessed himself beaten, 
and took to his bed. 

“ I never thought I should be ill,” he murmured, “but 
it won't be much. I shall be well in a day or two, I know 
I shall. You were right, Mr. Erie, I shouldn't have 
meddled with them rats, hang 'em! I don't care how 
soon we get out of this ship. There's a curse on her; 
that's what it is. There's a curse on her.” 

Tom must have been very bad to own himself in the 
wrong. It was an evil sign, and made me almost despair 
of his recovery. 

1 had lately read a second time, in some instances a 
third time, the medical books in the captain's cabin, and 
the knowledge thus acquired, and my own observation, 
had given me certain ideas as to the treatment of yellow 
fever, which I now proceeded to put into practice. Med- 
icine having produced no effect in previous cases, I de- 
termined to try something else. 

One of the most characteristic symptoms of the malady 
is intense heat, the patient's temperature being often as 
high as one hundred and seven degrees. I presumed, 
though I did not know for certain, that this was owing 
to an arrest of perspiration. The main point, therefore, 
was to make my patient sweat; so I rolled him in a wet 
sheet, then put a pile of blankets on the top of him, and 
make him drink about a gallon of hot water. I kept him 
in the pack for hours, and when I unpacked him, washed 
him all over with salt water. This operation I repeated 
several times in succession, and always when the fever got 
worse and his skin became hot and dry. I do not pre- 
sume to say that I cured Bolsover, for the illness ran its 
course; but, at any rate, he recovered, and that is what 
none of the others did. The fever may, however, have 
been of a milder type than theirs, and it is of course quite 


75 


A QUEER RACE. 

possible that he would have got better in any case, and 
did actually get better, not because of, but in spite of, 
my treatment. But my patient thought otherwise. He 
quite believed I had cured him, said that he owed me his 
life, and, in the fullness of his heart, protested that, 
whether I helped him to find the Santa Anna or not, he 
should give me half her cargo of gold and silver. 

“Thank you, Tom/' I said, laughing. “ Til take it, 
with all my heart; and it will be the biggest fee ever paid 
to a quack doctor since the world began, and that is say- 
ing a great deal.” 

“There is nothing to laugh at,” answered the boat- 
swain, who could never bear being chaffed about his 
craze. “There is nothing to laugh at, and Til make a 
man of you yet, Mr. Erie, never fear! You will be the 
richest man in Liverpool one of these days.” 

But Tom did not get better either very soon or very 
easily. He lay in his hammock three weeks, and rose 
from it a yellow-skinned, lantern-jawed ghost, hardly able 
to put one leg before the other. 

“ I shall not be of much use when the change comes,” 
he said, as I supported him to a Southampton chair, 
under an awning we had rigged up a short time before he 
fell ill. 

“ What change ?” 

“ Change of weather, to be sure. And it is bound to 
come soon. How long have we been here?” 

“ We have been becalmed five weeks; but as to how 
long we have been here I would not venture to offer an 
opinion. I am not sure whether we are here!” 

“You are getting beyond me now, Mr. Erie. Not sure 
whether we are here? Where else should we be?”. 

“ I mean that we are moving. At any rate, I think so. 
I happened this morning to throw a cork overboard at 
the stern, and now it is at the bows.” 

“There must be a current, then.” 

“It looks so; and if the cork moves, so must the ship, 
though not so fast.” 

“ You may soon find out whether she moves. Make a 
trial with the log.” 

“ A happpy thought! It never occurred to me. I will 
do it at once.” 


70 


A QUEER RACE. 

And I did. The Diana was progressing through ths 
water at the rate of a knot an hour. 

“ If we have been going at this speed all along for the 
last five weeks,” I said, making a rapid mental calcula- 
tion, “ we have done eight hundred and forty miles.” 

“ I don't think we have been going at this speed all 
along. When I fell ill it was as dead a calm as it could be, 
and as hot as blazes. And now it is cooler — I am sure it 
is cooler. Don't you think so?” 

“I know it is. I look at the thermometer every day, 
and the average temperature is from seven to ten degrees 
lower than it was a fortnight since.” 

“ If we have been doing a knot an hour these last three 
weeks, how much would that make?” 

“Five hundred and four miles.” 

“ Which means that much further south. Well, I 
shouldn't wonder. Have you looked at the chart lately?” 

“ I have pored over it till my head aches; and the more 
1 look the more puzzled I become. I never in my life 
felt so ignorant and helpless. How I wish I had got 
poor Captain Peyton to give me a few lessons in naviga- 
tion.” 

“I wish you had, Mr. Earle. It almost seems as we 
shall have to keep on as we are till something turns up, 
doesn't it?” 

“Like a couple of Micawbers.” 

“Eh?” 

“ I mean it vexes me to be so utterly helpless, and I 
weary of having nothing to do.” 

“Don’t worrit yourself, sir. We shall get somewhere 
sometime, if you will only be quiet; and when the weather 
changes you will have quite enough to do. And there is 
a feel in the air and a look about the sun as tells me that 
the change won't be long in coming. That signal with 
our number seems to be stirring a bit, doesn't it?” 

“Yes; 1 think it is fluttering just a little.” 

“There must be a light breeze aloft, then; and if we 
could only set our topsails, and main and mizzen top- 
gallant sails, we might get steering way on her, and 
make, maybe, two or three knots an hour.” 

“ Two or three knots! I wisli we could make twenty 
knots and get somewhere,” I exclaimed, passionately. 


A QUEER RACE. 77 

i( Storm, tempest, shipwreck, anything would be better 
than this intolerable calm.” 

“ Hush! hush! Mr. Erie, don’t you be a-tempting of 
Providence; we shall have a wind before long, you’ll see. 
We don’t want no storm, or tempests, or shipwrecks. 
Just a fair wind, and no more.” 

Weather-wise as old Tom undoubtedly was, his forecast 
— influenced probably by iiis wishes — remained a dead 
letter for a whole week. But as he repeated it every day, 
he proved himself a true prophet in the end. Contrary 
to my expectations — for I had read and heard that trop- 
ical calms are almost invariably succeeded by terrible 
storms — the change came gradually. First of all a breath 
of air, just sufficient to tauten the jibs and fill the fore- 
sail, without having any sensible elfect on the progress 
of the ship; then a light wind, which gave us steering 
way, followed at a short interval by a spanking breeze 
that sent us along at the rate of four or five knots an 
hour, and made us wild to spread more canvas. 

We carried this breeze with us several days, and with 
a lower temperature, bright sunshine, and a grand sea, 
we felt better and more hopeful than we had felt for a 
long time. Our voyage, we thought, must be coming to 
an end. We could surely not go much further without 
either sighting a sail or making land. But when our 
hopes were at the highest, the fine weather suddenly col- 
lapsed. Clouds gathered, the sun disappeared, and a fine 
rain fell, so thick and misty that we could not see more 
than a cable’s length ahead. This went on for days; the 
wind changed, too, and not being able to tack, we were 
obliged to change with it, and almost reverse our course. 

“ This is worse than the calm,” grumbled old Tom, 
“and if it goes on we shall either be ramming the ship 
ashore, or getting run down by a steamer.” 

It not only went on, but grew worse. The rain 
melted into a fog so dense that after sundown we were 
shrouded in a darkness so impenetrable that we could not 
see a hand’s breadth before us, and had absolutely to 
grope our way about the ship. It was like solitary con- 
finement in a black hole, with an extreme probability of 
sudden death. Our spirits sunk to zero, and my courage 
almost gave out. Even old Tom, confident as he had 
hitherto been, began to despair. To run aground or be 


78 A QUEER RACE. 

dashed against some iron-bound shore in that pitchy 
darkness would be death in its most frightful shape. 
Yet the certainty of death was easier to bear than the 
suspense we were compelled to endure, and the con- 
sciousness that every moment might be our last. Bols- 
over, being still weak, could give me little help, and ex- 
cept when I took an hour's rest, once or twice in the 
twenty-four, I was always at the helm. But every man's 
strength has its limits, and after awhile I became so used 
up that I could stand it no longer. 

“ We can only die once," I said to Bolsover; “ and 
whether we live or die, I must sleep." 

So I lashed the wheel amidships and turned in. 

When I awoke there was a glimmering light, but 
whether of gloaming or dawn I could not determine, for 
I had lost all count of time, knew not the day of the 
week, and had forgotten to wind up both my own watch 
and the late captain's chronometer. 

I went on deck, and found the helm still lashed amid- 
ships; but Bolsover was nowhere to be seen, and I looked 
into his bunk, and armed with a lantern, visited all his 
accustomed haunts without result. 

“ Clod bless me!" I thought. “ He surely cannot have 
fallen overboard! That would be too awful!" 

I returned to the poop, seriously alarmed, and began 
to unlash the helm (not seeing what more I could do until 
there was more light), when I heard a hail from the mast- 
head. 

“ Is that you, Tom?" I shouted. Rather a superfluous 
question, perhaps, for it could not well be anybody else. 
Yet it seemed hardly possible for a sick man to climb 
in the dark to the mast-head of a ship that was rolling 
like a log. 

“Ay, ay, sir; it's me. I'll be down directly," was the 
answer. 

Ten minutes later (by which time it was decidedly 
lighter) he came sliding down the shrouds. 

“What were you thinking of, to go up to the mast- 
head in your present weak state?" I said, reproachfully. 
“Suppose you had fallen overboard?" 

“And ]f I had! You know what you said before you 
turned in about two days since?" 

“ Two days since ?" 


79 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Nearly; though there's so little difference between 
day and night that I cannot be quite sure. You said a 
man can only die once. All the same, I don't think 
there's much risk in going to the mast-head — I am 
stronger than I was when you went asleep — and fogs is 
queer sorts of things; it often happens as they lies just 
on the top of the water, and all above is clear and bright 
—leastways, so I've heard say. So I thought as I would 
just go up and find out, if I could, whether this here fog 
is of that there nature." 

“Is it?" 

“ Partly. Anyhow, it is a good deal clearer up there 
than down here, and a score yards or so higher up I dare 
say it is broad daylight. All the same, I saw the sun 
rise; and, what’s more, I made out something as looks 
very like land." 

“ Land! Land at last! Thank God!" I gasped, almost 
speechless with surprise and joy. “ But are you sure you 
are not mistaken? Whereaway?" 

“On the port bow. No, I don't think I am mistaken. 
It looks like a big mountain, fifteen or twenty miles off, 
may be. Give me a glass, and I'll go up again and have 
another squint." 

“ I'll go with you, Tom. Wait half a minute." 

As I spoke I whipped into the captain's cabin and 
fetched two binoculars. I slung one round my neck and 
handed the other to the boatswain. 

“ Don't you think as you had better take the helm, sir, 
and keep her up to the wind? She rolls so much as it 
will hardly be possible to make anything out. Then, 
when I come down, which it won't be many minutes, I 
can take the helm and you can go up." 

There was so much sense in this suggestion that I was 
fain to comply with it, notwithstanding my eagerness 
“ to take a squint " on my own account — and it was well 
I did. As I went to the wheel, the boatswain began to 
climb up the shrouds, slowly and painfully, being still 
rather short-winded and weak-kneed. 

I had just steadied the ship, and he had got as far as 
the upper main-topsail yard, when there came out of the 
fog a hail so startlingand unexpected that it almost made 
me jump out of my skin. 


so A QUEER RACE. 

“ Starboard! Hard a starboard! For God^ sake star- 
board your helm!” 

As I whirled round the wheel the fog rolled back and 
revealed a scene the like of which I had never before be- 
held, or even imagined, and old Tom came down on the 
deck with a run. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

PAINTED OR PIEBALD? 

Right before us rose sheer out of the water a tall, 
white rock, at least fifty feet high. Another moment and 
we would have crashed against it, “ stem on.” We were 
saved only by Tom’s sharpness of vision, by the prompti- 
tude with which I obeyed his order, and the sudden lift- 
ing of the fog. 

But are we saved? There are rocks to the right of us, 
rocks to the left of us, some white, others red, yet all of 
great height, with splintered, fantastic pinnacles and 
broken battlements like the keeps of so many ruined 
castles; some as naked as an Alpine peak above the snow- 
line, others mantled with a luxuriant growth of greenery 
and pendant wild flowers, while the waves leap up their 
sides and troops of sea-birds wheel round their summits. 
A veritable labyrinth of rocks; and as I look up after the 
first shock of surprise, I see inscribed on one of them, in 
old-fashioned and bold yet worn characters, these start- 
ling words: 

“ Here the Santa Anna ” 

“ 1744 .” 

There seems to be another word, but being covered 
with a spray of ivy, I cannot make it out. Whether Bol- 
sover sees the inscription I do not know. He is at the 
bows, conning the ship, and I am steering; the passage 
between the line of rocks being so narrow, and the cur- 
rent or tide so strong, that it requires most strenuous at- 
tention to avoid striking. More than once the yards 
scrape the brow of some beetling cliff, and only by 
Heaven’s help and old Tom’s skillful pilotage do we es- 
cape utter destruction. 

At length the stress is over, and with an indescribable 
sense of thankfulness and relief we sail into open water. 
We can breathe freely. Danger and the dark sea are be- 


A QUEER RACE. 81 

hind, hope and a harbor of refuge before us. We are in 
a wide, crescent-shape bay, fringed with a shore of white 
sand, from which rises, in gentle slopes, a glorious moun- 
tain, on whose summit waves a cloud-banner, which at 
first sight I mistake for the smoke of a volcano. 

Save for the white limestone crags with which it is 
crowned, the mountain is clad with verdure from top to 
bottom. Field alternates with forest; I can distinguish 
roads, too, and here and there is a quaint house of wood, 
not unlike the chalets that lend so great a charm to the 
valleys of Switzerland and the Tyrol. 

All this, of course, through a binocular. We are still 
too far off to see much with the naked eye. 

“ Heaven only knows where we are,” I said to Tom, 
who by this time had come aft. “But it seems a civil- 
ized sort of place. No danger of our being killed and 
eaten, I think.” 

“Not a bit. Cannibals don’t build houses or make* 
roads like them there. I wonder whether it’s an island 
or a continent? Anyhow, it is well protected. That 
line of reefs stretches from one point of the bay to the 
other. It is a miracle how we got through. If the fog 
had not lifted just when it did — and it did not lift much 
— we should have gone to everlasting smash. We came 
out of it; that was it. Look there!” 

It. was true. Beyond the barrier rocks the mist still 
rested on the sea, looking in the distance like a chain of 
billowy mountains. 

“The tide — or maybe it’s a current — is running fast,” 
said the boatswain, a few minutes later. “I wonder 
whether we are in soundings? I will heave the lead, and 
if we are, we must make ready to let go.” 

lie had evidently not seen the inscription on the white 
rock; and it was quite as well He would have been able 
to think of nothing else. 

“ By all means,” I answered. “It would never do to 
run aground, and there is not much chance of getting a 
pilot, I fear.” 

Whereupon Tom took the lead and went into the chains. 
When he came back he reported that the depth was nine 
fathoms, the bottom sandy, and the water rapidly shoal- 
ing. He thought that, to be on the safe side, we should 


82 A QUEER RACE. 

let go at once, though we were still three or four miles 
from the nearest part of the coast. 

To this I of course agreed, for in matters of seamanship 
I always deferred to Bolsover's opinion; and five minutes 
afterward the Diana was riding at anchor, her stern to- 
ward the land, her stem toward the rocks. 

<f How about going ashore?” I asked. “ Can we lower 
a boat?” 

“1 think so; and if it comes to that, we must. But 
wait a bit; there/s no hurry. May be some on ’em — na- 
tives or what not— will be coming off to us.” 

“ All right. Fll run below, put on a clean shirt, and 
make myself presentable.” 

“ As you like, sir. But as for me, 1 shall take no such 
trouble. I shall do well enough as I am. I don't sup- 
pose the people of this country are of much account — 
niggers or greasers, or sum mat o' that sort. They don't 
wear no clothes — not they; and they are sure to speak 
some confounded outlandish lingo that nobody under- 
stands but themselves.” 

Though we had survived the dangers of a most peril- 
ous voyage, escaped death as by a miracle, and brought 
the Diana to a safe anchorage, poor old Tom was evi- 
dently in an unhappy frame of mind. It was easy to 
guess the reason. We had seen nothing of the treasure- 
ship, nor any sign of her, and for several reasons I did 
not think the time had yet come to make mention of the 
writing on the rock. 

When I returned to the deck, feeling: all the better for 
a good wash and fresh rig-out, Tom was peering hard 
through his glass. 

“ There's a boat putting off,” he said; “ a biggish boat 
with a lateen sail, and a crew of six or eight men — cus- 
tom-house chaps, of course; for you may be cock-sure of 
one thing: if a country hasn’t as much trade as would 
keep a colony of fleas, it is sure to have custom-houses — 
for, you see, if custom-houses isn't trade, they looks like 
it.” 

I took a glass and had a look on my own account. 
The boat was under way, and evidently making for the 
Diana; but owing to the lightness of the breeze and the 
flowing tide, the lateen sail did not seem to be of much 
use, and the crew were taking to their oars, which they 

9 ^- : 


83 


A QUEER RACE. 

appeared to handle with great dexterity. But I gave 
i less heed to the boat and her management than to the 
people she carried. I burned with curiosity to know 
p where we were and what kind of people we had fallen 
s among; and I thought that I might possibly gather some 
i- idea of their characters, perhaps even of their nationality, 
from the personal appearance of the boat's occupants, 
r At any rate, they were clothed; so far, so good. 

Houses, roads, boats, garments — all these were unmis- 
t takable signs of civilization. 

“ Blacks, by !" sung out Tom, who, albeit older 

than I, had not dimmed his sight by bending over a desk. 

1 “ Nonsense! They are dark, perhaps; but certainly 

not black; and those two men in the stern are certainly 
i white." 

“ It looks so; but we cannot surely have got to the 
• West Indies, nor yet to the Brazils. And you are wrong; 

; they are not white, and the others are not black." 

“ What on earth are they, then?" 

“ They are By the Lord Harry! they are spotted 

— every man-jack of 'em. Those chaps in the stern are 
white and red; and them as is rowing, red and black." 

And Tom dropped his glass and gave me a look so 
comically expressive of fear, bewilderment, and surprise, 
that I laughed outright. 

“What can they be?" I asked; for though my vision 
was less keen than his, I could see that the people in the 
boat had very queer complexions. 

“ Cannibals — savages in their war-paint. Nothing 
else. And they’ll eat us, too, if they get a chance. But 
I'm not going to be eaten if I can help it, Mr. Erie. 
We'll sell our lives dearly — we will that. There's arms 
in the captain’s cabin. Let us load them at once. And 
those old carronades" (two brass pieces we had for firing 
j signals), “we'll load them, too. I know where the cart- 
ridges are." 

“ But we have no ball." 

“Never mind; we'll charge them with old nails and 
bits of iron." 

“ Very well. Do so, then. We may as well be pre- 
pared. But, for my part, I cannot say that I have any 
great fear of these painted people. At any rate, it is 
better to speak them fair before we show fight." 


84 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Speak ’em fair! What's the use of speaking fair— 
or foul either— for that matter— to a lot of savage devils 
as can't understand a word you say? As soon as they 
get within shooting distance they'll let fly a harrow at your 
head — unless you are beforehand with 'em. I've been 
among such-like in the Pacific, and I know. However, 
you stop here and watch 'em, Mr. Erie, and I'll get the | 
arms ready." 

The boat came on apace, and the nearer she drew, the 
more puzzled I became. The rowers being naked to the I 
waist, I naturally saw a good deal of them; but whether 
they were red men dabbled with black, or black fellows 
dabbled with red, I was unable to determine, and as yet 
I could see little or nothing of their faces. Of the two 
men in the stern, however, I had a very fair view. Their 
faces were queer, very queer. The elder of them seemed 
to have a reddish eye and a white one; and the left i 
cheek of the other differed in color from the right. As 
the elder turned his head, moreover, I perceived that he 
sported a pigtail. Their coats, of some dark material, 
were large and roomy, and adorned with brass or gold 
buttons; their nether garments were white; and, to 
crown all, they wore cocked hats, such as I had seen no- j 
where but in old-fashioned pictures and on the stage. 

The pigtail suggested China, but it was impossible 
that we could have drifted as far as the Flowery Land — 
and the Celestials don't wear white breeches and cocked I 
hats. Then it struck me that these were wild people, 
after all, who had obtained their strange costumes from 
the plunder of a ship, or by way of trade; for I knew 
that savages like nothing so well as to array themselves 
in grotesque finery. But, no! Those roads and houses! I 
And the rowers boasted no finery whatever; and, some- 
how, notwithstanding their painted faces, the two men 
in the stern had not the air of savages. 

I gave it up, and awaited the denouement with eager 
curiosity. 


A QUEER RACE. 


65 


CHAPTER XIV. 

“ ENGLISH, BY JINGO!” 

In the meantime Bolsover had brought a couple of 
rifles and a supply of cartridges, and was now charging 
the carronades. 

“ What is the use of that?” I said. “They are 
mounted on wooden carriages; you cannot depress them.” 

“ Well, then, they'll frighten the beggars, and may be 
make 'em sheer off. They kick up a devil of a row, these 

carronades. By ! they are not above a thousand 

yards away. I think I could pick the first fellow off — him 
as is rowing stroke” — taking up a rifle. 

“Don't be a fool, Tom,” 1 said, quietly. “It would 
be the height of folly to make any sort of hostile demon- 
stration — to show fight, I mean — until and unless we are 
quite sure that the.^e men mean mischief. For Heaven's 
sake, let us make friends of them if we can. If we make 
enemies of them we are done for. There are hundreds, 
perhaps thousands, more ashore, and we might as well 
try to fly as to get the ship out of the bay.” 

“As you like, sir. I look on you as my superior of- 
ficer, and Tom Bolsover always obeys orders. But keep 
your weather eye open, for as sure as any of them painted 
devils puts their feet on deck we are dead men.” 

I made no answer. All my attention was concentrated 
on the boat. When she came within hailing distance 
the man with the pigtail (who had been steering) gave 
the tiller to his companion and stood up. He was tall, 
and wore a sword — so far as I could see, the only weapon 
in the boat. 

“Good !” I thought. “ There intentions must be peace- 
ful.” 

The man with the pigtail put his hand to his mouth. 

“ What ship is that?” he asked, in a loud, clear voice, 
and with faultless pronunciation. 

“ English, by Jingo!” muttered Bolsover. “ Boy and 
man, I've been at sea two-and-thirty year, and so help 
me ” 

“ The Diana, bound from Liverpool to Montevideo,” 1 
answered. “ What country is this?” 

“We call it the Fair Island.” 


86 A QUEER RACE. 

“ And the inhabitants ?” 

“We call ourselves English.” 

By this time the boat is under the counter. 

“ Will you come on board?” I say. “ But wait a min- 
ute, and we will lower you a ladder.” 

“ Thank you, we don't need a ladder,” says the younger 
man; and clutching a rope which hangs over the ship's 
side, he hauls himself up, and vaults over the bulwark 
with the agility of a professional acrobat. His compan- 
ion follows suit, although a little more leisurely, doubt- 
less owing to his greater age and somewhat heavier build. - 

Then they draw themselves up to their full height, 
doff their cocked hats with a graceful sweep, and make a 
low bow. 

I return the salute in my best style, but the contrast . 
between the manner of their coming on board, and their 
dignified bearing, their cocked hats, pigtails, white ' 
breeches, and mottled faces, is so exceedingly droll that 
I can hardly keep my countenance, while old Tom, al- 
most exploding with suppressed laughter, bolts inconti- f 
nently down the fore-hatchway, where he can give free j 
vent to his mirth without any breach of politeness. 

What especially tickled him (it certainly tickled me) is 
probably the .act that our affable and agile guests are not 
merely painted; they are actually piebald. Their varie- 
gated hue is as much a part of themselves as their pig- 
tails and their noses. 

Judging by the way they stare at me (after recovering 1 
their perpendicular), I excite their curiosity as much as j 
they excite mine — which is, pehaps, quite as well, for 
their inspection gives me time to compose my counte- j 
nance and recover my presence of mind. 

“ Your most obedient servant,” says the elder of my I 
visitors, bowing again. 

“ Yours truly,” I answer, bowing in return. 

Then another pause. 

“Welcome on board the Diana, gentlemen,” I add, for I 
they look as if they expect me to say something more. 

“ It affords me infinite pleasure to make your acquaint- ! 
ance.” 

(Not, perhaps, the very best thing to say in the circum- j 
stances, but the best I can think of on the spur of the 
moment.) 




A QUEER RACE. y? 

“Your pleasure, sir, cannot be greater than ours,” re- 
turns the senior piebald. “ Never before has anybody 
from the old home favored the Fair Island with a visit. 
Our people, sir, will give you a warm welcome. Might 
I make so bold as to inquire to whom I have the honor 
of speaking?” 

“ My name is Sidney Erie.” 

“Mine is Waterlow Field. Allow me to introduce to 
you my friend and kinsman, Mr. Amyas Fane.” 

I bow again; so does Mr. Fane. 

“I presume you are the captain?” asks Mr. Field. 

“No; I am only a passenger.” 

“Ah, the captain is below, I suppose?” 

“Very much so. He is dead, and his body lies at the 
bottom of the sea.” 

“ Poor fellow! And the mate?” 

“ He also is dead. In fact, the boatswain and myself 
are the sole survivors of the Diana’s passengers "and 
crew; all the rest are dead.” 

“God bless me! What did they die of?” 

“ Yellow fever.” 

“ And you and the boatswain only are left! How terri- 
ble! That was the boatswain who went to the fore part 
of the ship just now, I suppose?” 

“ Yes. Old Tom; and a right good fellow he is.” 

“I am glad to hear it. He seems also to be a merry 
fellow.” 

“Merry! Not particularly. Rather the reverse, in 
fact. Why do you think he is merry?” 

“ Because I hear him laughing.” 

“Hear him laughing! Impossible! Why, he is down 
in the fo’castle, and we are on the poop.” 

“Oh, yes; I hear him quite distinctly. Do not you, 
Amyas?” 

“Distinctly. He is talking to himself, too. What is 
it he says?” — listening attentively. “ * By the Lord 
Harry! Boy and man. I’ve been at sea two-and-thirty 
year!’ Now he laughs again; what at, I wonder?” 

There was no humbug about it. They really could 
hear a man talking in the forecastle, or perhaps they 
were clairvoyants! 

“ Your sense of hearing is much more acute than mine; 
I cannot hear a word,” I said. And then, fearing that 


88 


A QUEER RACE. 

cur visitors might hear something to their disadvantage, 
I blew a call on my whistle, as 1 generally did when I 
wanted Tom and he was out of ear-shot. 

“ You informed us just now that the Diana was bound 
from Liverpool to Montevideo. How, then, may I ask, 
did you find your way thither?” asked Mr. Field. 

We did not find our way at all. The ship found it 
for us. We came by chance.” 

i( And you actually made the passage of the Painted 
Rocks in safety! That was indeed an extraordinary 
chance. No sea-going ship ever did the like. But you 
shall tell us your story on another occasion. We are 
come, my dear sir, to ask you to accompany us to Fair- 
haven, the modest capital of the Fair Island, there to 
make the acquaintance of our people and be presented to 
our queen.” 

“ You do me too much honor, gentlemen; I shall only 
be too delighted. You will go with me, of course, Tom?” 
(He had just come aft.) 

<f Where you goes, I go, Mr. Erie. I am ready. But, 
I say ” — sotto voce — “ did you ever? Boy and man, Pve 
been at sea two -and- thirty year ” 

This would not do at all. People who could hear a 
laugh as far off as the forecastle could hear a whisper 
six feet away: so, in order to avoid any cause of offense, 
1 turned from Bolsover, and, asking our piebald friends 
if they smoked, offered each of them a cigar, which, after 
saying they were extremely “ obleeged ” to me, they ac- 
cepted. 

“ Have you a light, Tom?” I asked. “ I am afraid I 
left my box below.” 

Of course I have,” answered the boatswain. And 
taking a match from his waistcoat pocket, he lifted up 
his leg and struck it on his trousers. 

“ Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” exclaimed 
Mr. Field, turning pale and starting backward, while his 
companion made a still more rapid retreat, clapping his 
hand on the bulwark as if he were preparing to jump 
into the sea. “ Magic! Mr. Bolsover must be a wizard. 
Does he always carry fire in — in — that particular part of 
his person?” 

“ Oh, dear, no!” I answered, laughing. “ He only 
struck a match. A little splinter of wood, you see. The 


89 


A QUEER RACE. 

substance at the end is a mixture of phosphorous and 
some other chemical substances, which ignites when 
slightly rubbed. Do it again, Tom." 

Tom did it again. 

“ Marvelous!" exclaimed the senior, examining a match. 
“ A recent invention, I presume. The progress of en- 
lightenment! Ah! ah! Would you kindly let me try?" 

I said yes, of course, and sent Tom for more matches, 
as well as vestas and fusees, and showed how they were 
struck on the boxes; but both Mr. Field and his friend 
preferred the boatswain's method, and proceeded to 
practice it forthwith. They had, however, a slight diffi- 
culty to contend with in the extreme smoothness of their 
nether garments, which rendered necessary in the act of 
striking a rapid movement of the right hand. At the 
outset they failed somewhat ignominiously. The elder 
gentleman raised his leg rather too high, and, striking at 
the same time, lost his balance, and falling against Mr. 
Fane (who had also his leg in the air), both rolled on the 
deck together, rather to the discomfiture of the senior; 
but the younger man laughed heartily, and they were up 
again before you could have said “Jack Robinson," 
springing to their feet without using their hands. 

After this I gave each of them a box, which they ac- 
cepted with unaffected delight. Then I produced a re- 
volver, and fired several shots in rapid succession; but, 
though the weapon both surprised and delighted them, 
and they remarked how useful it would be in warfare, 
they were evidently less impressed with it than they had 
been by the striking of the match on old Tom's trous- 
ers. 

“ Have you any other arms on board?" asked Field — 
as I thought, rather anxiously. 

“ Not many rifles and revolvers — perhaps a dozen of 
each. They belonged to the captain and passengers. 
But I think there are a few cases of muskets in the hold. 

“.And ammunition?" 

“ Well, we have a very miscellaneous cargo, and I be- 
lieve I heard the captain say there was gunpowder in it. 

I don't know how much; but f can easily find out by 
looking at the manifest." 

With that I went into the cabin, and returned with the 
document in question. 


91 A QUEER RACE. 

“ Yes.” I said, looking at it. “There are ten barrels 
in the magazine. 

“ We will buy it from you,” he returned, eagerly. 
“Indeed, I think we should be disposed to buy from you 
the whole cargo — possibly the ship itself.” 

“ They are not mine to sell,” I answered, rather taken 
aback by this suggestion. “All the same, the ship is 
here without any possibility, so far as I can see, of get- 
ting away. I have a right to do the best I can for the 
owners and underwriters, and you may have anything the 
ship contains, or all she contains.” 

This was making a virtue of necessity; for if the 
piebald people thought fit to appropriate every article on 
board, it was evident that old Tom and I could do noth- 
ing to hinder them. 

“Whatever we take we shall give you full value for, 
either in gold or pearls,” said Mr. Field. 

This was satisfactory, so far as it went; and it was in- 
teresting to know that the piebalds possessed gold and 
pearls; but howl could turn them to account in that out- 
landish place, or how I should get back to Liverpool, did 
not seem quite clear. Nevertheless, I thanked Mr. 
Field warmly for his obliging assurance, and added that 
I should leave the matter entirely in his hands (again 
making a virtue of necessity). 

“It is not in my hands,” he observed, gravely; “I 
speak only as an individual member of the council; yet I 
have no doubt that my colleagues and Queen Mab will 
gladly profit by the opportunity which you so kindly 
placed at their disposal. And now, my dear sir, if it be 
quite agreeable to you, we will get into the boat and 
shape our course for Fairhaven.” 

Desiring nothing better, I answered promptly in the 
affirmative. My appetite was whetted with what I had 
seen and heard, and I was eager to know more of the 
queer race to whose remote home I had drifted. 


CHAPTER XV. 

FAIR ISLAND. 

Tom and I went down the side by a rope ladder, taking 
with us, at Mr. Field’s request, a rifle and a revolver; 


91 


A QUEER RACE. 

Fane and he went down as they had come up. The 
strength and activity displayed by the younger man were 
really marvelous. Without apparent effort, he swung 
himself over the bulwark by one hand, seized a rope with 
the other, and dropped into the boat as lightly as a 
monkey. He was about the finest, perhaps the very 
finest, specimen of the geuus homo I had yet seen. 
Though I stand six feet in my stockings, he overtopped 
me by three inches; his chest development was quite 
phenomenal, and his long arms were as muscular as a 
horse’s leg. His features, too, were good, and but for 
the queerness of his complexion I should have considered 
him handsome; afterward, when piebald skins ceased to 
be a novelty, I did consider him handsome. He had a 
broad, though rather low forehead, short black hair, 
large dark eyes, the whites being singularly clear, an 
aquiline nose, small mouth, and square, resolute jaws. 
His head, albeit hardly large enough for his broad 
shoulders and lofty stature, was shapely, and • f well set 
on;” he carried himself magnificently, and his move- 
ments were as lithe, as graceful, and as unconstrained 
as those of any of the great felmce. 

The contrast between him and the crew of the boat was 
both startling and painful. The six rowers were the most 
hideous creatures 1 had even seen, ever in a nightmare. 
Their predominating color was deep black, dabbed with 
red and yellow patches in a singularly arbitrary and irreg- 
ular fashion. Thus, one man had a red nose in the mid- 
dle of an otherwise jet-black face. Another had a red 
mouth; another, again — and I think he was the most hor- 
rible-looking of the lot — had red eyelids and a red upper 
lip, all the rest of his visor being of the deepest ebony. 
Add that the pupils of their eyes were indistinguishable 
from the iris, and the whites large and streaked with 
blood, their noses huge and flat, their mouths wide, with 
blubber* negro-like lips, their foreheads narrow and tat- 
tooed, and that they w r ore bone rings in pendulous ears, 
and you may form some idea of the appearance of these 
Calibans (the name, as I afterward heard, actually be- 
stowed on them by the islanders). In stature they were 
rather short, yet less so than might seem, owing to the 
great width of their shoulders and the muscularity of 
their frames. Every man of them was a squat Hercules; 


92 A QUEER RACE. 

and their biceps, as they rowed, swelled out to the size of 
cocoa-nuts. 

These beauties evidently occupied a very inferior posi- 
tion. I observed that Field and Fane never spoke to 
them except to give them orders, and always in a tone of 
harshness that jarred painfully on my feelings, for, ugly 
and degraded as the men seemed, they were at least 
human. 

With six oars and the lateen sail (for the wind now 
served), we went swiftly through the water; but instead 
of making for the nearest part of the coast, as I expected 
he would, Fane (who took the helm) steered the boat up 
the middle of the bay, and in the direction of a headland 
some four or five miles north of the Diana. The coast 
was thickly wooded, and the character of the vegetation 
— the palms, magnolias, and vines, the height and ver- 
dure of the trees, and the brilliancy of the flowers — 
showed that the Fair Island possessed a mild and equable 
climate, that it was far enough from the pole to escape 
severe winters, yet near enough to the tropics to enjoy 
long summers and plenty of sunshine. 

I fancied we were about thirty to forty degrees south 
of the equator; but this was pure conjecture, and neither 
Field nor Fane seemed disposed to give me much infor- 
mation on the subject. 

“ What was the Diana’s position when you took your 
last observation?” asked Field, in reply to a question I 
put as to our whereabouts. 

“ That is weeks — months since,” I said. “ The last 
observation was taken by poor Bucklow. Neither Bol- 
sover nor I understand navigation.” 

“So much the better — I mean, it is probably no great 
loss in the circumstances. You will, perhaps, learn more 
of the geography of the Fair Island later on. We shall 
see. However, I may tell you this much — you are south 
of the equator.” 

“ Thank you,” I said, laughing. “ I guessed as much.” 

But I failed to guess why he was so reticent on the 
point. What objection he could have to telling me where 
we were, I was unable to conceive. He was equally re- 
served about everything that concerned the history of the 
island and its inhabitants. To my questions on the sub- 
ject he returned evasive answers, and at last shut me up 


93 


A QUEER RACE. 

by saying that if I stayed long enough I should doubt- 
less get to know all about them, and that it was a very 
long story, which at present it was quite impossible for 
him to tell. 

About the island and its productions he was, however, 
more communicative. It contaimed some four hundred 
thousand acres — that is to say, it was about four times 
the size of the Isle of Wight. The population might be 
twenty or thirty thousand, though, as it was a long time 
since there had been a count, he could not be quite sure. 
The soil was very fertile, as I could see; and thanks to 
the mountain (mountain par excellence , there being no 
other), which enabled the inhabitants to vary their cli- 
mate at pleasure, they had a great variety both of cereals 
and of fruit. The valleys and plains near the sea pro- 
duced maize, yams, cotton, sugar cane, oranges, grape- 
vines, peaches, and pomegranates; higher up grew wheat, 
potatoes, apples, and cherries. 

Mr. Field further informed me that, with the excep- 
tion of a narrow gap on the western side, the Painted 
Rocks extended all round the island, and that the mist 
through which we had sailed was a permanent institu- 
tion. 

“ We think it is caused by a meeting of currents, one 
hot and the other cold/’ he said. “ Anyhow, it is al- 
ways there, and the mist and the rocks safeguard our 
island home far more effectually than a line of forts.” 

“ Yes,” I said, “ you may bombard a fort, bnt you 
would have to shoot a long time at that fog before you 
made any impression on it; and those rocks would defy 
all the ironclads in Europe. By the bye, what does that 
inscription, something about the Santa Anna and 1744, 
mean ?” 

“ Ah! you saw that, did you? It is merely the name 
of a vessel that was wrecked there. Some day we will 
have a cruise among the Painted Rocks, and you will find 
other records of the same sort. Several vessels have left 
their bones thereabouts. As I told you, the Diana is the 
only ship that ever got safely through, for which you 
may thank your stars; and though, as I was saying, there 
is a gap on that side, pointing westward, a wide stretch 
I of sand- banks, shoals, and hidden coral reefs render nav- 


94 


A QUEER RACE. 

igation, except for very light craft, piloted by men who 
know the coast, almost impossible.” 

“So, one way and another, you are pretty secure from 
intrusion?” 

“ So much so, that you and Mr. Bolsover will be the 
first strangers our people of this generation have seen.” 

By this time we had rounded the headland. It divided 
the large bay from the smaller one, which seemed to run 
a long way inland, and terminate in a river or creek. Its 
sides were lofty and picturesque, with lateral openings 
into romantic little valleys; and here and there a silvery 
stream, overarched with trees, shot arrow-like into the 
sea. 

“ There! That is Fairhaven!” -exclaimed Mr. Field, 
when we were about half- way up the inlet, at the same 
time pointing to a commanding eminence on the north- 
west side of the mountain. 

Looking through my binocular, I could make out a 
number of buildings scattered over a wide expanse of 
ground, and rising one above the other, much after the 
fashion of a Swiss Alpine village. 

“Mabis back. Field,” said Fane, gazing in the same 
direction. 

“The flag is flying, is it? Ah, your eyes are younger 
than mine, Amyas.” 

I glanced at them inquiringly. 

“ Look at the large house which stands a little way 
from the others, near a grove of acacia- trees, and sur- 
rounded by a garden,” said Fane. 

“ Yes; I have found it.” 

“ Well, the flag you see fly ing above the veranda signi- 
fies that Queen Mab is at home.” 

“ But I doiTt see any flag,” I said, straining my eyes, 
and altering the focus of my binocular. 

“ Is it possible that I can see better with the naked eye 
than you with your spy-glass? May I? Thank you.” 

“ It would seem so,” I said, handing him the binoc- 
ular, and showing him how to adjust the focus. 

After trifling with it a few minutes, he gave it back. 

“It certainly brings things a little nearer,” he said. 
“ All the same, I can see quite as well without it as with 
it. I fear I should find a spy -glass rather a useless in- 
cumbrance.” 


95 


A QUEER RACE. 

This incident set me wondering whether my conductors’ 
keenness of vision, acuteness of hearing, strength of limb, 
and monkey -like agility were peculiar to themselves, or 
common to all the inhabitants of the island. 

After a while I squinted through my binocular again, 
albeit I felt that the a«t was a somewhat painful confes- 
sion of physical inferiority. 

Mr. Fane was quite right. I could now, being a mile 
or so nearer, plainly distinguish a flag flying from thereof 
of the house in which, as I presumed, dwelt the island 
queen. 

But how we were to reach the place did not seem quite 
clear, for shortly afterward the creek began to trend in 
the opposite direction. When I asked Field, he smiled, 
and said: 

“Wait a few minutes, and you will see.” 

The few minutes brought us to a point where the 
stream divided into two branches, one of which forked off 
to the right, the other to the left. We followed the latter, 
which, after running for a mile or more between high 
banks, widened into a beautiful lagoon, or, rather, fairy 
lakelet. In shape it was oval, and at its widest part 
about five miles across. Its shelving shores were laid out 
in orange groves and flower gardens; richly plumed birds 
skimmed its waters, as clear as crystal and as blue as the 
heavens; gayly painted boats rode lazily at anchor, while 
others, trimming their wing-like sails, floated leisurely to- 
ward a channel which seemed to wind round the base of 
the mountain. 

It had been rightly called Fairhaven. Except in Italy 
and Switzerland, I had seen nothing with which it could 
be compared. It was as gracious as Como, as romantic 
as the Lake of the Four Cantons; and though the land- 
scape may have lacked the grandeur of the Alps, the rich- 
ness of the flora, the proximity of the ocean, and the 
rugged crest of the mountain, emerging from a mass of 
verdure and diademed with a silvery cloud, gave this part 
of the Fair Island a beauty all its own. 


96 


A QUEER RACE. 




CHAPTER XVI. 

QUEEN" MAB. 

We landed in a little cove, from which a steep zigzag 
path, winding among great cedars and towering palm- 
trees, led to the town — so steep, that being out of condi- 
tion with our long life at sea, Tom and I found some dif- 
ficulty in keeping up with our companions, who could 
hardly have walked faster if we had been competing for 
a prize. We two were continually lagging behind, and 
more than once Fane gave us a look which expressed both 
pity and contempt, as if he thought us very poor creat- 
ures indeed. This riled me exceedingly, and i did my 
utmost to overtake him; but he was in splendid fettle; 
the more I strove the faster he went, and when after a 
fifteen minutes* spurt we reached the town, I was com- 
pletely blown and bathed with perspiration, while he was 
not even flushed, and breathed as quietly as an infant. I 
began to dislike Mr. Amyas Fane. 

As for poor old Tom, we had left him half a mile be- 
hind, dead-beat, sitting on a stone, and mopping his face 
with an ancient bandana pocket-handkerchief. 

The town — village, rather, though it was the capital of 
the island and the seat of royalty — consisted of two or 
three hundred wooden houses. Some of them were rede 
in the extreme, being little more than log huts; others 
were larger and more pretentious, built of boards, with 
verandas and external galleries, and brightly painted. 
All were thatched, and being more or less mantled with 
greenery and begirt with gardens, the general effect was 
gay and picturesque. 

In the center of the village was a large square, on one 
side of which stood the church, distinguished by a wooden 
tower, and on the other a still larger building, known as 
Government House, used for meetings, public offices, 
and the like. 

All the people we met were more or less piebald. 
Some bore a general resemblance to my companions, 
others were of the same type as the boatmen whom I 
have already described. 

At last we reached the house where the flag was flying. 
It was the largest I had yet seen. Thatched, like all 


97 


A QUEER RACE. 

the rest, it had several high-pitched gables, and a wide 
porch with overhanging eaves. An open gallery ran 
round the building at the level of the upper story. Be- 
neath the gallery was a veranda, supported by wooden 
pillars and festooned with vines. 

A narrow path, winding between dwarf palm-trees and 
rhododendrons in full bearing, led up to the porch. 

Two or three young women, with mottled complexions, 
were sitting in the veranda. One was reading, another 
knitting, a third seemed to be spinning something with 
a distaff; but as I had never seen anybody spin with 
a distaff, I could not be quite sure. These young women 
were all tall, well formed, and extremely graceful in their 
movements, for which their somewhat airy and easy- 
fitting garments offered every facility, and their sandaled 
feet were innocent of hose. 

After greeting them gravely and courteously (an ex- 
ample that Tom and I were careful to follow), Mr. Field 
inquired if “she” was in. 

On receiving an answer in the affirmative from the 
maiden who seemed to be most in authority, he requested 
her to announce him and his companions, and asked 
whether it would please the queen to receive us. The 
maiden bowed compliance, entered the house by the 
porch, and in two minutes came back to say that her 
mistress had been waiting for us all the afternoon with 
the greatest impatience, and that we were to go in at 
once; whereupon our conductors, beckoning Tom and me 
to follow them, went in without further ceremony. 

The porch opened into a wide vestibule, at the end of 
which was a door. We crossed the vestibule together, 
and on reaching the door Mr. Field gave a sharp knock 
with his knuckles. 

“Come in!” answered a low and musical, yet, as I 
thought, a somewhat peremptory roice. 

“ After you,” said Field to me, opening the door. 

I obeyed him without hesitation, though not without 
trepidation, for my education in the etiquette of courts 
having been somewhat neglected, I had not the least idea 
what was the right thing to do in the circumstances — 
whether I should enter on bended knee, kiss the queen’s 
hand, speak first, or wait until I was spoken to. I had, 
moreover, an idea (one does get strange ideas sometimes) 


98 


A QUEER RACE. 

that ner majesty was likely to be a crabbed old woman 
with a fat body and a sharp tongue. However, I went 
j n — walked into the middle of the room (rather a large 
one) with as much composure as I could muster — and 
then stopped short in mute surprise. 

At an^open casement, which commanded a view of the 
mountain, the lake, and the sea, sat a young woman read- 
ing a book with an ancient binding much the worse for 
wear. At her feet crouched an animal which at first 
sight I took for a huge mastiff; but when the creature 
rose to its feet, showed a row of fierce-looking teeth, and 
wagged a tail about a yard long, I saw that it was a wild 
beast, and,,if not a lion or a lioness, uncommonly like 
one. 

“ DoiTt be alarmed,” said Queen Mab, pleasantly; “ it 
is only my pet puma; he is not used to strangers. Down, 
Cato!” 

Whereupon Cato resumed his recumbent position, 
greatly to my relief. 

“ Mr. Erie, a passenger by the Diana, the ship that 
anchored in the bay this morning,” announced Mr. 
Field. 

“ Welcome to Fair Island!” said the queen, rising from 
her chair and offering me her hand. 

I took the hand and kissed it — a proceeding which no- 
body appeared to expect, for Mr. Field made a gesture of 
surprise and Mr. Amyas Fane scowled. The queen, how- 
ever, seemed in no way displeased. She smiled, bowed 
graciously, and then regarded me earnestly and curiously. 
I returned the look with interest; I could not help it. 
I should have done the same had she been ten royal per- 
sonages rolled into one. 

Never was woman better worth looking at than Queen 
Mab. She was within two inches of my own height, 
beautifully proportioned and faultlessly shaped. A tight- 
fitting dress of some dark glossy material set off her form 
to the best advantage. Round her waist was a pearl- 
studded girdle; she wore a necklace to match, and each 
of her arms was encircled with a curiously wrought brace- 
let of gold. Her face was, moreover, white, and her com- 
plexion pure. A mass of black curls rested like a coronet 
on a broad and noble brow, and her flashing, gypsy-like 
eyes, slightly aquiline features, firm mouth, and broad 


A QUEER RACE. 90 

chin, bespoke at once intelligence, high courage, and 
strength of will. 

Yet, kind as Nature had been to the island queen, she 
evidently belonged to the same queer race as her people. 
Though her face was white (comparatively, for she was 
a decided brunette), the lower parts of her neck and 
throat were hued with bronze: so also were her arms and 
one of her feet; for, like the maidens in the veranda, she 
wore neither sleeves nor stockings. 

But as I had already found out, there was a marked 
difference between the piebald of the women and the pie- 
bald of the men. As touching the latter, the copper- 
colored spots were, so to speak, stamped on the white 
ground, and clearly defined; but with the women it was 
otherwise; the two shades blended into each other; you 
could not say where the one ended and the other began, 
and the more obtrusive color was less prominent and glar- 
ing. It should be observed, too, that none of the adjec- 
tives I have used for the purpose describe this color ex- 
actly. I have called it “ red ** and “ coppery;" it might 
with equal accuracy be defined as tc cinnamon," as all 
three, in fact;.for the piebalds vary as widely in the color 
of their epidermis as the so-called white races of Europe 
and North America. As for Queen Mab, though she cer- 
tainly looked "bizarre , I thought then, and I think still, 
that the peculiar tint of her neck rendered her all the 
more striking and picturesque. At any rate, it made an 
admirable setting for the brilliant pearl necklace which 
adorned her throat and the white and crimson orchids 
which she wore at her breast. 

“ Excuse me for looking at you so curiously/* she said, 
after our mutual inspection had lasted a couple of min- 
utes, “ but you are the first really white man and the first 
Englishman I have seen/* 

“ We are all English/* put in Fane/ abruptly — almost 
rudely, indeed. 

“ We are pleased to think so, and we are of English 
blood; but you cannot deny that it is rather mixed. 
There is a good deal of difference between you and Mr. 
Erie, for instance.** 

“ Yon are right. He is not quite so tall, nor, perhaps, 
quite so strong. He is near-sighted, and hard of hear- 


100 


A QUEER RACE . 

ing, and so short-winded that it was all he could do to 
walk up the hill from the lake.” 

I was deeply stung by this insolence, all the more so as 
it was impossible in the circumstances to resent it as it 
deserved. 

“ So would you he short-winded if you had been four 
months at sea, and gone through what I have gone 
through,” I said, warmly. “But wait ” 

“ You forget where you are and to whom you are 
speaking, A myas,” interposed the queen, severely. “ Re- 
member that Mr. Erie is our guest; and as for shortness 
of sight— well, sharp eyes are quite compatible with a 
shallow mind.” 

Mr. Fane collapsed. 

“ I infer from what you say, Mr. Erie, that your voy- 
age has been an eventful one — that you have undergone 
great hardships. I want you to tell me all about it, and 
how you discovered the Fair Island, and made the pas- 
sage of the Painted Rocks. No ship ever did it before. 
When I saw you cast anchor in the bay this morning I 
could hardly "believe my eyes.” 

“ Willh\gly, your majesty. It is rather a sad story, 

but ” Here her majesty broke into a merry laugh, 

Mr. Field seemed amused, and Fane smiled sardonic- 
ally. 

“ Why do you say ‘ majesty?’ ” asked Mab, when she 
had done laughing. 

“ Because in addressing a crowned head it is the right 
thing to say. At least, I have always supposed so, though 
I freely admit I never spoke to a crowned head before, and 
know nothing of the etiquette of courts.” 

“Crowned head is good,” said Mad, laughing again; 
better than * majesty/ I think. But you are mistaken. 
I am neither a crowned head nor a majesty.” 

“Then these gentlemen misinformed me,” I said, feel- 
ing both foolish and vexed. “ They always speak of you 
as queen — Queen Mab.” 

“So I am” — proudly — “in the sense that I am chief 
of the state, but that makes me neither a majesty nor a 
crowned head. There are neither crowns nor courtiers 
in Fair Island, and there is nothing I should more detest 
than to be addressed in terms of fulsome, and therefore 
insincere compliment ‘ Majesty/ indeed! But more of 


A QUEER RACE. 101 

this another time. Your story, Mr. Erie! I want to 
hear your story. Begin, please. But I am forgetting; 
you must be hungry. It is a long way from your ship 
hither.” 

And with that she crooked her forefinger, put it be- 
tween her lips, and gave a low, musical whistle. 

The next moment the door opened, and one of the 
maideus whom we had seen on the veranda appeared at 
the threshold. 

“ Order a refection to be served for these gentlemen 
an hour hence,” said this queer queen of a queer race. 
“Now, Mr. Erie, pray begin; and, if possible, make your 
tale last until the refection is ready.” 

I obeyed; and when I saw how much the account of 
my voyage interested my listeners — above all the queen, 
who never took her eyes off me, and I am sure missed 
not a word — I told it in full, from start to finish, and as 
I warmed to my work I think I told it effectively, keep- 
ing back nothing save the incident of the chaplain's man- 
uscript, which, as I thought, belonged rather to Tom's 
story than mine. 

Once or twice the two men made as if they would have 
interrupted me; but Queen Mab stopped them with an 
imperious gesture. Until I had finished she would not 
suffer a word to be spoken, and then I was simply over- 
whelmed with questions. 

What did I mean by an auxiliary screw and getting up 
steam? How could a ship move when there was no wind? 
were among the first. 

I tried to explain; but, as they were absolutely igno- 
rant of the properties of steam, 1 had a difficulty in mak- 
ing my explanation clear. Mab, I could see, fully be- 
lieved me; but when I spoke of railways, locomotives, 
steam-engines, and the rest, Field and Fane smiled in- 
credulously. On this a bright thought struck me. 

“Go with me on board the Diana,” I said, “and I will 
ship the screw and start the engine. There is coal 
enough in the bunker for a run round the bay. When 
that is done we must fire up with wood.” 

“ By all means,” exclaimed Mab. “ Yes, I wdl go on 
board, and then you can show me all these wonders. 
Only to think that ships can be made to move and car- 


102 A QUEER RACE. 

riages to run simply by boiling water! It seems al- 
most ” 

“ Impossible!” put in Fane. 

“ No, not impossible; I am sure Mr. Erie tells the 
truth. Say, rather, incomprehensible, and most passing 
strange. We have no right to disbelieve things merely 
because they are new and startling. But pray tell me, 
Mr. Erie, whether there are any books on the Diana.” 

“ Yes, a good many. Two or three hundred volumes, 
I should think.” 

“ Two or three hundred volumes! Oh, how glad you 
make me!” she exclaimed, fairly clapping her hands with 
joy. “ Books are better than steam-engines; and we have 
so few books, and those we have are almost in pieces. 
See this copy of ‘ Shakespeare !’ ” — holding up the volume 
she had been reading — “ it will hardly hold together; my 
‘ Plutarch’s Lives ’ and f Paradise Lost 9 are in the same 
evil case, and poor ( Robinson Crusoe 9 has almost ceased 
to exist. We have several works in manuscript, and I am 
having more copied; but paper is not plentiful in Fair 
Island. Think you there is any on the Diana?” 

“ Some, certainly; perhaps, a good deal. Our cargo 
is miscellaneous, and paper is largely exported from Eng- 
land.” 

“England! Ah! I shall want to know much about 
England, Mr. Erie. I shall tire you with my questions; 
I am sure I shall. But here is Marian, to say the refec- 
tion is served; and after so much talking you cannot fail 
to be hungry.” 

As Mab spoke she rose from her chair. I rose also, 
and offered her my arm, which, after a momentary hesi- 
tation, she took, I guessed, from her manner and the 
looks of the two piebald gentleman, that I had done 
something unusual. But as it did not seem that Mab 
took the attention amiss, I could easily dispense with their 
approval. 

The refection was set out in the next room on a table 
which, like everything else about the place, was evidently 
of home manufacture. The pottery was equally rude; 
the display of glass scanty, and of ancient fashion and 
shape. The forks were wooden -handled and two-pronged; 
the knives bore a strong resemblance to butchers’ whit- 
tles; but, strange to say, the plates were of silver, and we 


A QUEER RACE. 103 

drank onr Adam's wine — Queen Mab offered us nothing 
stronger — ou t of goblets of gold. The viands were abund- 
dant and well cooked. We had soup, fish, and foul, yams 
and potatoes, savory pies and sweetmeats, with fruit in 
great variety and abundance; but neither beef, mutton, 
nor pork. Our hostess took the head of the table; I sat 
at her right hand. Field at her left, and old Tom sat op- 
posite young Fane. The boatswain did not seem to be 
enjoying himself much. He was not used to ladies’ so- 
ciety, poor fellow, and detested cold water. I am sure 
he would have preferred a meal of lobscouse and plum- 
duff on board the Diana, washed down with a glass of 
half- water grog, to the finest refection anybody could set 
before him. The queen tried in vain to set him at his 
ease and draw him out. She only succeeded in overaw- 
ing him. But she made one more effort. 

“ Won’t you take an orange, Mr. Bolsover?” she said, 
offering him one with her own hand. “It is a very fine 
one, grown in my own garden, and picked by myself.” 

“ Take it, Tom!” I said, seeing that he hesitated. 

“Thank you kindly, ma’am,” he exclaimed, stretching 
out his hand to receive the proffered gift. 

“My God! What is this?” she exclaimed, dropping 
the orange and seizing the arm. “ What is this? ‘ Santa 
Anna, 1744/ and the figure of a ship! How, when, 
where — what means it? Tell me, what means it?” 

All looked at her in blank surprise. Old Tom seemed 
thunder-struck, and could answer nothing. 

“ What means it?” repeated the queen. “ How came 
this inscription on your arm? I want to know.” 

The boatswain, still speechless, pointed to me. 

“This man appears to have lost his senses,” she said, 
turning to me, “ Will you be good enough to tell me, 
Mr. Erie? at once, if you please.” 


CHAPTER XVII. 

A REVELATION. 

Queen Mab evidently intended to be obeyed; and as 
Tom’s craze and the chaplain’s narrative were no secret, 
and I found myself in the presence of a mystery wdiicli I 
was as anxious to solve as herself, I willingly complied 
with her rather peremptory request. 


104 


A QUEER RACE. 

“Do you happen to have that document with you, 
Tom ?’’ i asked him. 

“No; it is in my locker aboard the Diana.” 

“ Weil, I have read it so carefully and so often that I 
know it nearly as well as I know Lloyd’s Register. So to 
begin at the beginning.” 

And then I told them of the elder Bolsover finding the 
tin case at the Azores, and gave almost as full an account 
of Mr. Hare’s diary as if I had read it aloud. Out of 
consideration for Tom’s feelings I said no more about his 
craze than was necessary, only that he was fully per- 
suaded that he should see the Santa Anna, before he died, 
and find the treasure which he believed she contained. 
This remark concluded my second narrative, to which all 
had listened with bated breath. 

“Mr. Bolsover has been cherishing an illusion, I am 
sorry to say,” said the queen, after a short silence, which 
she had obviously spent in deep thought. “He will not 
see the Santa Anna. She perished more than a century 
ago: and as for the gold and silver she had on board — 
well, the plates off which you have just dined, the gob- 
lets out of which you have drunk, are part of the gal- 
leon’s treasure; but the bulk of it is still intact and in 
our possession.” 

Tom stared at her with a dazed look; his face turned 
ashen gray, and his lips twitched convulsively. 

“You don’t mean to say,” he said, hoarsely — “you 
don’t mean to tell me as — as the Santa Anna foundered 
hereabouts and somebody else got the treasure? I won’t 
believe it! It can’t be true! God! it would be too hard 
— too hard — after all these years. No; I won’t believe 
it!” 

“ If the Santa Anna you mean is the Santa Anna of 
which Mr. Hare speaks in his diary,” said Mab, wonder- 
ingly and pityingly, “and which was captured by the 
Hecate in 1744, there can be no question that she struck 
on the Painted Rocks in the same year; that all the ef- 
forts of the crew to get her off failed; and that she went 
to pieces a few weeks afterward — not, however, before 
all her stores and all the treasure were taken out of her 
and landed on this island.” 

“ I don’t believe it! I don’t believe it!” reiterated the 


105 


A QUEER RACE. 

boatswain. “It cannot be true. You are making game 
of me! Say, now, you are making game of me!” 

. “ What mean you? Why should I make game of 

you?” asked the queen, angrily. “All that I have told 
you is on record. We have the log-books both of the 
Hecate and the Santa Anna. Mr. Hare did not die of 
the illness he was suffering from when he threw his diary 
into the sea; he lived to be an old man, and died on this 
island. I can show you his grave. And the Mr. Fane 
he mentions, who took the command after Captain Bar- 
naby's death, was my great-great-grandfather, and the 
founder and protector of this commonwealth.” 

Then Fve been defrauded!” cried Tom, savagely, 
striking his fist -on the table. “ That is what it is; Fve 
been defrauded! It's me as should have found that treas- 
ure! It's me! It's me! Haven't I thought of it, and 
dreamed of it, and striven for it thirty years and more? 
Ay, they were right as called me Crazy Tom. I am 
crazy! I am crazy! and may God forgive them as has 
made me so!” 

And bowing his head on his hands, the poor old fellow 
wept aloud. 

“ Why does the foolish man take on so?” asked Mab, 
who seemed equally distressed and surprised. “ He might 
have been visited with some terrible misfortune. It surely 
cannot be disappointed greed?” 

“ It is the shattering of a long-cherished delusion,” I 
said. “The idea of finding the Santa Anna had become 
a part of his life.” 

“ And he has found her. At any rate, he has found 
out what became of her, and that is all he had any right 
to expect; while as for the treasure, I shall be glad to 
give him an ingot or two of gold or a few handfuls of 
doubloons.” 

“Fll have no gifts from nobody,” said the boatswain, 
in a quavering voice. “ If I had found it, all would have 
been mine; but I would have shared and shared alike with 
Mr. Erie. Ain't I speaking the truth now? Didn't we 
agree to share and share alike?” 

“Say no more now, Tom,” I said, soothingly. “ We 
will talk the matter over to-morrow, and I hope you will 
see it in another light. Go into the garden and smoke 
your pipe.” 


106 


A QUEER RACE. 

“Ay, ay, sir!” he muttered, and without another word 
left the room, greatly to iny relief, for I could see that 
the queen was beginning to lose patience. 

“These are strange stories you have told us, Mr. Erie,” 
she said, turning to me, “ and no less strange is the man- 
ner of your coming hither. It would almost seem as if 
Fate, or Fortune, or Providence had directed vour course 
and sent you to the Fair Island for some purpose which is 
not yet clearly discernible. And no less strange than the 
story you have told me is the story which I am about to 
tell you. Don’t shake your head, Waterlow Field. I 
shall tell Mr. Erie everything. He is a man of honor, 
and will neither abuse my confidence nor do aught to in- 
jure our people or compromise their safety. Besides, who 
knows? lie may be persuaded to remain with us and give 
our commonwealth the benefit of his knowledge and ex- 
perience; and you must admit that we are sadly lacking 
in many things. If isolation has great advantages, it has 
also serious drawbacks! But to my story. You must 
have already guessed, Mr. Erie, that we are the de- 
scendants of the Hecate’s crew; indeed, I just now told 
you that Commander Fane was my great-great-grandfa- 
ther. The Santa Anna struck against those very Painted 
Bocks through which you so marvelously threaded your 
way ” 

“ Then the inscription I saw — — ” 

“You saw the inscription! That is the very place. It 
must be well-nigh obliterated by this time. We will have 
it renewed. Since the wreck of the Santa Anna, several 
ships have been lost in the same place; for the most part 
they went to pieces immediately, and their crews per- 
ished to a man. Yours is the only ship that ever got 
through, and you are the first born Englishman who, 
since 1774, has landed on the island. But if I go on at 
this rate I shall never finish my story, and I had perhaps 
better not attempt to finish it — at present. You shall 
read the log-books of the Hecate and the Santa Anna, 
also our records; they have been well kept, and then 
afterward — yes, that will be the better way — Mr. Field 
will place all the records at your disposal. Let him see 
everything, Mr. Field.” 

Mr. Field bowed acquiescence, and I said I should 
read the log-books and records with the greatest interest. 


A QUEER RACE. 107 

After a few further remarks had been exchanged I in- 
quired if the queen was still in the mind to pay her prom- 
ised visit to the Diana. 

“ Certainly,” she said, smiling. “ I am not in the habit 
of changing my plans except for good cause; and I am 
most anxious to see your wonderful steam-engine, and, 
above all, those books. I fear I shall never be able to 
tear myself away from them. May I bring some back 
with me?” 

“ Of course. Have I not said that the Diana and all 
she contains are entirely at your disposal? But I shall 
have to precede you. It will take me an hour or two to 
get steam up; and we shall require help to heave the 
anchor. The boatswain and I cannot do it alone.” 

“ You shall have all the help you want. See to it, Mr. 
Field, that Mr. Erie’s orders are as implicitly obeyed as 
if I gave them n^self; and give him and the boatswain 
quarters in your house.” 

On this he bowed again. Then the queen gave me her 
hand, which I kissed as before, and withdrew with Field, 
leaving her alone with Fane, whom I now knew to be her 
kinsman; for the commander of the Santa Anna was 
doubtless the common ancestor of both. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

DEXZIL EAN'E. 

I learned much about the queer race from the Santa 
Anna’s log-books and the other books to which Mr. Field, 
by his mistress’ command^ gave me access; by reading 
between the lines, by conversation with that gentleman 
and with others, and from my own observation, I learned 
even more. The gist of this information I propose to 
embody in the present chapter, for it is essential, not 
only to a right understanding of the people among whom 
I found myself, but of the events that afterward came to 
pass, as also of my own personal narrative, which I shall 
presently resume. 

It will be remembered that when Mr. Hare, the chap- 
lain, threw his diary into the sea, he thought he was like 
to die, and that his companions would not long outlive 
him. As the reader already knows, these anticipations 
were not realized. Mr. Hare lived a good deal longer 


108 A QUEER RACE. 

than he expected, and only a portion of the ship's com- 
pany — the sick, the wounded, and nearly all the Spanish 
prisoners — succumbed. The fittest survived, in fact; but 
they suffered terribly from scurvy and thirst, and were 
saved when almost at the last gasp by a tremendous 
downpour of tropical rain, followed by a succession of 
storms, which drove them hundreds of miles out of their 
course, dismasted and damaged the ship, and left her 
little better than a wreck. For days together the officers 
were unable to take an observation. Before jury-masts 
could be rigged and damages made good, they drifted 
into the fog, from which they emerged only to strke on 
the Painted Rocks. Fortunately, however, the ship 
was jammed between two reefs, and impaled on a third 
in such a way that she could neither sink nor make much 
water. 

This happened in the night, and the joy of the har- 
assed and weary sailors maybe imagined when at daybreak 
they saw before them a land of waving forests and run- 
ning waters. As the island was not marked on any of 
their charts, they had no means of knowing whether it 
was the possession of a European power or inhabited only 
by savages. But as the boats (which were at once got 
out) approached the shore, they were met by a multitude 
of canoes, crowded with copper-colored aborigines, whose 
demeanor showed that they had never before beheld men 
with white skins and hairy faces. They brought fruit and 
other offerings, and made overtures of friendship which 
the English sailors were only too glad to reciprocate, since 
it was evident that, whatever else happened, they would 
have to remain on the island for a considerable time; and 
being too few to conquer a whole people, their only chance 
was to make friends of them. 

The natives, as Commander Fane thought, were Caribs, 
of the same race as the unfortunates who inhabited the 
Bahamas when Columbus discovered America, and who 
were afterward so completely wiped out by the Spanish 
Conquistadores. They were gentle and hospitable, and 
looking upon their visitors as superior beings, treated 
them with great deference and respect. Though for 
the most part hunters and fishermen, the Caribs of the 
island were not wholly uncivilized. They dwelt in vil- 
lages; their houses were something more ; han mere 


109 


A QUEER RACE. 

shelter-huts; they had a rudimentary knowledge of gar- 
dening and agriculture; the make of their flint and bone 
tools and weapons showed considerable skill; their orna- 
ments were deftly wrought; and they contrived, in a 
rude way, to spin and weave, fashion into clothing, and 
even to dye, the indigenous cotton of the island. Phys- 
ically well made, with senses wonderfully acute, they had 
a ready wit and dignified manners, and Commander Fane 
was not long in coming to the conclusion that the 
islanders might easily be converted into a Christian and 
civilized people. 

The first idea of the castaways was to build a boat big 
enough to carry them to England or the Bahamas; to 
which end they lost no time in taking out of the Santa 
Anna everything likely to be useful to them, and that 
was pretty nearly all she contained — ropes, spars, sails, 
tools, arms, ammunition, and the rest. They even broke 
up and took some of the planking, and stripped as much 
of the copper sheathing as they could get at. The treas- 
ure was all removed and safely stored. 

All this occupied two months or more, and it was barely 
completed when the Santa Anna, which had been terri- 
bly buffeted in a storm, went to pieces. 

So far the men had worked willingly and well, obeying 
their officers without hesitation; but when it became a 
question of building a boat and “ affronting new dan- 
gers” (to use Commander Fane’s own words), they began 
to murmur. Why, they said, should they undertake a 
perilous voyage in a frail craft — a voyage of at least two 
thousand miles (that being the distance to the nearest 
British possession) — with the almost certainty (if they 
should escape shipwreck a second time) of falling into 
the hands of the Spaniards and being immured for years 
in some horrible prison, possibly tortured and put to 
death bv the Inquisition? Why not stay where they 
were? The country was fertile and beautiful, the climate 
genial, the people kindly. What could they do better 
than make the Fair Island* their home, and let the world 
wag? 

Whether this idea had already occurred to Fane does 

* A name conferred on the country by the sailors because of 
its supposed resemblance to the Isle of Wight, which in the last 
century was generally known as the “ Fair Island.” 


110 


A QUEER RACE . 

not appear, but before the suggestion could be considered 
an event occurred which seems to have helped him to a 
decision. He and his men were living in tents and huts 
near the present site of Fairhaven, when one morning 
several of the native chiefs made their appearance, and 
gave them to understand that they were threatened with 
a grave danger, and taking the commandant round the 
mountain, pointed to the west, where there was a breach 
in the barrier of rocks, and where the mist occasionally 
lifted. 

Looking through his glass. Fane saw that the sea was 
simply black with canoes, which were rapidly approach- 
ing the coast. 

It was a flotilla of invaders, and the Carib chiefs, who 
seemed greatly alarmed, implored him by signs to join 
his forces to theirs and help them to repulse the foe. 
Fane, who wanted nothing better, ordered his plan of 
campaign on the spot. It would be impossible to reach 
the west coast before the invaders (whom, for want of a 
better name, the sailors christened tx Cariberoes”) dis- 
embarked, the more especially as the country was thickly 
wooded and destitute of roads. But the creek that lies 
below Fairhaven joins a stream which sweeps round the 
foot of the mountain, and flows half-way across the island 
in a westerly direction. It was on the banks of this 
stream (navigable for small boats) that the English officer 
resolved to intercept the Cari heroes and give them battle. 
His men were summoned forthwith, and embarked on the 
four boats which had once belonged to the Santa Anna. 
The crews were, of course, well armed, and the long-boat 
carried a small carronade in her bows. A few hours suf- 
ficed to organize the expedition, which included a hun- 
dred canoes, carrying about a thousand natives, armed 
with bows and arrows and spears, the whole under Mr. 
Fane’s command. 

The spot he selected for making a stand was at a ford 
near an opening in the forest that the invaders must 
needs traverse in order to reach the eastern or Fairhaven 
side of the island, which was assumed to be their objec- 
tive point, as thereabouts were the principal Carib vil- 
lages. 

By great exertion Fane and his men succeeded in 
reaching the ford three or four hours before the enemy 


Ill 


A QUEER RACE. 

put iii an appearance. Keeping his blue-jackets in reserve, 
he sent the greater part of the Caribs to meet the in- 
vaders in the open, with orders to fall back fighting as 
the latter advanced, recross the river, and take up a po- 
sition among the brushwood on the banks. At the same 
time, feeling himself quite strong enough, and having no 
doubt as to the result, he ordered two of his officers to 
take a second party of Caribs through the forest, lie in 
ambush near the invaders* line of retreat, and cut them 
off from the boats. 

These dispositions made, the allied forces awaited the 
onset of the enemy, who came on several thousand 
strong. 

The Caribs, after making a show of resistance, fell 
back, and then, pretending to be panic-stricken, made in 
desperate haste for the river, the foe in full cry after 
them. When the latter were well within range, the blue- 
jackets (who had been lying perdu under the bank) 
opened fire on them both with their muskets and the 
carronade. The invaders, utterly dumfounded by this 
unexpected reception, retreated in great confusion; but 
once among the trees again, they rallied, and, turning to 
bav, showed a most resolute front. 

On this the commander ordered a general charge, which 
he led in person. Then followed a desperate struggle— 
“ the hottest thing I was ever in," wrote Fane. The 
blue-jackets, after giving the Cariberoes a couple of vol- 
leys point-blank, fell on them with cutlasses and clubbed 
muskets, and were bravely supported by their native al- 
lies. The fight lasted fifteen minutes, and there is no 
telling how it might have ended if the ambush party, 
hearing the firing, had not made a diversion in the rear, 
whereupon the invaders, being seized with a panic, 
threw away their arms, and made off in all directions. 
Many were killed; more were taken prisoners; only a 
very "small remnant succeeded in reaching their boats and 
getting away. 

The Caribs had no idea of keeping the prisoners alive, 
and were proceeding to make short work of them, when 
Commander Fane interposed. He would have nobody 
killed in cold blood. The question then arose as to how 
the prisoners were to be disposed of. To let them go 
away would never do; they might come back another 


112 


A QUEER RACE. 


day. To let them roam about the country was equally 
impolitic; they would be a chronic trouble and a perma- 
nent danger. There was only one other alternative, and 
that was adopted. They were enslaved. 

Fane had many ideas advanced; but the age in which 
he lived was neither a sentimental nor a humanitarian 
age. He not only thought there was no wrong in slavery, 
but that the best use to which the prisoners could be 
put was to reduce them to servitude. So they were 
bound in twos and threes and distributed among their 
captors, and slavery became one of the permanent insti- 
tutions of the island. 

The invaders, as Fane afterward ascertained, came from 
an island about a hundred miles east of Fair Island, and 
when he first saw them their appearance excited his 
unbounded surprise. Some were black, others copper- 
colored or red; but the greater part had the same spotted 
skins as the Caliban crew of Field's boat — were, in fact, 
their ancestors. How African negroes had found their 
wav so far west was a matter of conjecture; they were 
probably, as Fane surmised, the descendants of a cargo 
of revolted slaves, who, after killing their captors, had 
landed on the island and intermarried with the natives. 

Speaking for myself, I am unable to assign any cause 
for the peculiar hue of these people, or to decide whether 
it was the outcome of some subtle evolutionary process, 
or a mere caprice of atavism. As the mixture of 
aborigines with Englishmen on the one hand, and negroes 
on the other, produced analogous results, the piebaldism 
of their progeny may be attributable either to soil or 
climate, or possibly to some racial peculiarity. I have 
heard of tribes in Central America presenting similar 
characteristics, and it is a well-known fact that the issue 
of a black and white, or a mulatto and a white, are not 
always of the same type. Their children are occasionally 
born with black limbs and a white face, or vice versa, and 
1 kuow of no reason why the offspring of mixed races 
should not have variegated skins rather than skins of one 
uniform color throughout. Miscegenation has produced 
even stranger results. 

But as I am simply relating my own personal advent- 
ures, it is no part of my purpose to suggest explanations 


A QUEER RACE . US 

of the obscure natural phenomena which have come under 
my notice. 

And now to resume my story. 

When the prisoners (among whom were many women, 
the object of the invaders being to take entire possession 
of the island) had been disposed of, the Carib chiefs 
waited on Commander Fane, and, after expressing un- 
bounded gratitude for the great service he had rendered 
him, begged of him to stay with them for good, and 
offered him the sovereignty of the country. As for his 
people, they might have as much land and as many slaves 
as they liked, and choose for themselves wives from 
among the most beautiful girls of the island. 

It was not like a British officer to accept such an offer 
as this, for doing so involved both a dereliction of duty 
and a breach of discipline. To remain on the island, ex- 
cept under compulsion, was tantamount to desertion; and 
desertion by a combatant officer in war time is an offense 
punishable with death. Yet Denzil Fane not only did 
accept the offer of the Carib chiefs, but constrained his 
brother officers to follow his example. I assume the con- 
straint, albeit no mention of it appears in the records, be- 
cause it can hardly be supposed that the officers — the two 
lieutenants, the master’s mates, the surgeon, the chap- 
lain, and the half dozen midshipmen — would willingly 
agree to expatriate themselves and renounce all hope of 
ever seeing England again. But the recalcitrants were a 
small minority, and, being too few to build a ship and 
get away by themselves, they had no alternative but to 
throw in their lot with the others and make the best of 
it. And some of the officers, like the survivors of the 
crew, may have preferred freedom and the Fair Island to 
life on the ocean wave, for the British man-of-war of that 
time was not exactly a paradise. 

As for Denzil Fane’s motives I can offer no adequate 
explanation. One, and perhaps the most powerful, may 
have been that since his arrival on the island he had 
married a wife. The Spanish captain of the Santa 
Anna, who fell on his own quarter-deck, had with him 
his wife and daughter, the latter a handsome girl of nine- 
teen. The wife (Senora Velasquez y Blanco) survived 
her husband only a few weeks; but Mercedes was among 
the remnant wiio reached the island, and a month after- 


114 


A QUEER RACE. 


ward she and Fane were made one by the Reverend Rob- 
ert Hare. 

If the commander had left a wife in England (and 
such things have happened), his reluctance to return 
thither would be accounted for. But, though his con- 
duct may have been questionable, and his motives ob- 
scure, there can be no question that Denzil Fane was a 
man of resolute will and strong character — a born leader 
of men, I should say. If his people thought they were 
going to lead idle lives, they were very much mistaken. 
So soon as the decision was taken to remain on the island, 
he assigned to every one his task, organized a govern- 
ment, and promulgated a code of laws. Opposition (if 
the idea of it was ever conceived) would have been out 
of the question; the Caribs simply idolized their “ White 
Chief,” and rendered him the most implicit obedience. 
Roads were made, houses built, gardens laid out, trees 
cut down, and the country opened out. Sailors are al- 
ways handy fellows, and among so many there were nat- 
urally some with a turn for mechanics and engineering, 
and great improvements were effected in the native 
methods of manufacture, and several new industries set 
on foot. Into this work Fane threw so much energy that 
I am disposed to think he wanted to justify himself to 
his own conscience by civilizing his Carib subjects, and 
making the island the home of a happy and thriving 
community. This may possibly have been his ruling mo- 
tive from the first; and if so, there can be no doubt that 
with the materials at his command he succeeded better 
than might have been expected. 

Some of the rules he laid down are worth mention. 
Although he acquired the Carib tongue, he made English 
the official language, and insisted on the Caribs learning 
it. The process was probably slow and painful in the be- 
ginning, but in the end the desired result was attained. 
At the time of my arrival on the island there were not a 
hundred men who could hold a conversation in the Carib 
tongue. He also made them Christians — after a fashion — 
which was all the more easy, as their own primitive re- 
ligion seems to have sat very lightly on them, and they 
were ready to believe pretty nearly everything the Great 
White Chief told them. 

In his own family Denzil Fane made the practice of 


115 


A QUEER RACE. 

athletics and the training of the senses a religious duty, 
whereby it came to pass that bis descendants were dis- 
tinguished by exceptional bodily strength, litheness of 
limb, acuteness of hearing, and keenness of vision. Ow- 
ing to their descent from two European ancestors, more- 
over (though Fane’s children had necessarily intermar- 
ried with Caribs and half-breeds), they were whiter and 
less piebald than the other families of mixed blood, and 
formed a true aristocracy, not by right of birth merely, 
but by virtue of their physical and moral superiority, 
which was probably the end Fane had in view. 

He called his government a commonwealth, and him- 
self its <e Protector ” (from which I infer that he was an 
admirer of Oliver Cromwell); but in reality it was a pa- 
ternal despotism of a very uncompromising sort. The 
ruling body was ostensibly a Council of Nine, presided 
over by the Protector, and nominated by himself; and 
though they were at liberty to offer suggestions and make 
proposals, he was under no obligation either to adopt the 
one or accept the other. 

The office of protector was made hereditary in Fane’s 
own family; but on the strictest principle of primogeni- 
ture — in other words, the first-born child was to succeed, 
whatever might be its sex. Sons and daughters were 
placed on a perfect equality. The Council of Nine had, 
however, a right to veto, and it was about the only right 
they possessed. In the event of two thirds of their num- 
ber declaring that, in their opinion, the heir or heiress 
was physically or mentally unfit, or morally unworthy to 
rule, he or she would have to stand aside in favor of the 
next child in the line of succession. 

Denzil Fane lived long enough to consolidate his 
authority, firmly establish his dynasty, and organize, ac- 
cording to his own ideas, the community of which he was 
the head. He ruled the Fair Island for nearly half a 
century, and died full of years and of honors. The 
islanders revered his memory as the children of Israel 
revered the memory of Moses, and even more religiously 
than the Americans of to-day revere the the memory of 
George Washington. His recorded opinions were held in 
high honor, and the views and sayings ascribed to him 
by tradition had almost the force of law. 


116 


A QUEER RACE . 


CHAPTER XIX. 

WHY HOT QUEEN ? 

Although I spent half the night in poring over log- 
books and other records, and conversing with Field — 
who, now that the ice was broken, threw aside his re- 
serve, and treated me with all the cordiality I could 
desire — I rose next morning before the sun, and, accom- 
panied by Bolsover, and my host, and ten fishermen, 
went on board the Diana to prepare for the reception of 
Queen Mab. 

On our way thither Field explained how the present 
ruler came to her title. Two years previously Mabel 
Fane had succeeded her father, the fourth Protector; 
and as she strongly objected to the appellation as being 
unsuitable for a young woman, and the Council of Nine 
concurred in the objection, it became necessary to choose 
another. The choice was, however, attended with some 
difficulty. “Protectress,” besides being questionable 
English, did not sound well. “Governess,” besides 
sounding worse, was generally used in another sense. 
“Chief” and “President” have no feminine, and Miss 
Fane made it a condition sine qua non that the title 
selected should denote her sex. 

The difficulty was solved by an ingenious member of 
the council. “ Why not queen?” he said. “ It is the 
feminine of king; and ‘ king/ in the original significa- 
tion of the word, meant simply ‘the man who can’ — the 
strong man, in fact; he who is best qualified to be leader 
and chief. Hence ‘ queen 9 means the ‘ woman who 
can/ and no more implies divine right or royal descent 
than the title of ‘ Protector’ chosen by the first DenziJ.” 

Mabel liked the idea. She decided on the spot that 
she should be called “queen;” but strictly in the sense 
mentioned by the member of the council to whom the 
suggestion was due. As for the shortening of her Chris- 
tian name to Mab, which was almost in the nature of 
things, she rather liked it. “Queen Mab” sounded so 
much better than “ Queen Mabel,” she said. 

“ What sort of a queen does she make?” I asked Field. 

“ A very queenly one, I should say,” he answered, with 
a smile; “ and as you have seen already, she is rather ab- 


117 


A QUEER RACE. 

solute. But she is both able and well instructed. Indeed, 
I think she is the ablest ruler we have had since the first 
Denzil.” 

“ She is a woman who can?” 

“ Exactly. But between you and me ” — dropping his 
voice — “I fear that she does not hold her great ancestor’s 
maxims in quite so much respect as might be desired. 
She has done several things which do not quite square 
with his recorded opinions; and on one occasion, when I 
ventured to remonstrate with her, she said — this is strictly 
between ourselves, Mr. Erie — she actually said — I can 
hardly bring myself to repeat the words — ‘ A fig for old 
Denzil! There!' ” 

“God bless me! I can hardly believe ” 

“She did, though, I assure you. It is quite true that 
she remembered herself the next moment, and said she 
regretted having spoken so hastily. But the words were 
spoken, and 1 shall never forget them.” 

“Yes,” I replied, sympathetically; “ they must have 
made you feel pretty bad. So the queen is hasty some- 
times?” 

“Rather; but then you must remember that she is 
young, and lacks experience; she is quick-tempered, too, 
and just as quick, I am bound to say, to acknowledge a 
fault or own to a mistake. Of a right noble nature is 
Queen Mab.” 

Once on board the Diana, I set to work with two of the 
men to get up steam, while the others, under Bolsover's 
directions, occupied themselves in putting the ship to 
rights, swabbing the decks, and otherwise, as he expressed 
it, “ making her fit to be seen.” 

I saw with deep regret that disappointment about the 
treasure had made old Tom quite another man. It 
seemed to have changed his character. Instead of the 
simple-hearted, cheerful, chatty fellow he had once been, 
he was taciturn and morose. He did everything I 
wanted; but I found it impossible to draw him into con- 
versation; he answered me only in monosyllables. Some- 
thing had come between us; we were no longer the close 
friends we had been, and I felt sure, from his manner, 
that by a strange perversion of ideas he held me to blame 
for the shattering of his illusion; or, perhaps, considering 


118 A QUEER RACE. 

the treasure rightly his, he thought I should have claimed 
it on his behalf. 

All this both annoyed and grieved me, not only because 
I had a sincere respect for old Tom, but because I began 
to fear that we should not find it very easy to get away 
from Fair Island, and that unless we pulled together we 
might not get away at all. 

After we had been on board some three hours, and 
everything was in readiness, Queen Mab arrived in 
a large boat, manned by half a dozen slaves, which was 
speedily followed by two other boats, bringing a brave 
company of men and women, principally composed, as I 
afterward learned, of members of the Fane family and 
their kindred. 

When I had shown them round the decks, I took them 
into the engine-room, and explained, as well as I could, 
how the engine worked. Then the capstan was manned 
and the anchor weighed. Tom took the wheel and I 
started the engine. I need not repeat the exclamations of 
surprise which this proceeding called forth, nor the thou- 
sand and one questions which I had to answer. To use 
a somewhat trite phrase, they may be more easily imag- 
ined than described. 

The most curious of the company was Queen Mab. 
After going on deck to make sure that the ship really 
moved and see how it did move, she returned to the 
engine-room, plied me with questions, watched every- 
thing I did, and remained with me until we reached 
the mouth of the cove, where (the place being well shel- 
tered) we had decided to let go the anchor. 

It was still early in the day, and I thought the best 
thing we could now do was to overhaul a part of the 
cargo, so we opened the hold, rigged a derrick, and 
hoisted up a few of the cases. The first we opened was 
a case of Manchester prints; the next contained silks and 
mixed goods. Mab and all the women on board were in 
ecstasies. The island did not produce silk, and none of 
them had ever seen apiece of print in their lives before. 
The queen took one of the prettiest (by no means the 
gaudiest; she showed good taste), and drawing it round 
her like a robe, asked the others how it suited her. 

“ If you will come with me into the saloon,” I said, 
“you shall see for yourself.” 


lid 


A QUEER RACE. 

“I don't know what yon mean; but go on — I will fol- 
low,” was the answer. 

So a few lengths of the print were cut off, and we went 
into the saloon, which happened to be rather prettily 
decorated with painted panels and long mirrors. The 
surprise and delight of Mab and her maidens were really 
comic, and amused me immensely. They had never seen 
themselves full length before. Looking-glasses were not 
manufactured in Fair Island, the only mirror the queen 
possessed being a relic from the Santa Anna, about the 
size of her hand, and very much cracked, and a precious 
possession it was. She would not have exchanged it for 
its weight in diamonds. I thought they would never 
have done contemplating the reflection of their figures 
and faces, and the most mottled seemed to be quite as 
satisfied with their complexions as the comparatively 
fair. 

But nothing lasts forever, and after awhile we re- 
turned on deck and resumed our inspection of the cargo. 
What pleased most, after the silks, prints, and looking- 
glasses, were some pins and needles, which we found in 
a case of haberdashery; for albeit these articles were 
made on the island, they were of a rude and primitive 
sort. 

Queen Mab was in a fever of delight, and when I asked 
i her to do me the favor of accepting one of the long mir- 
j rors (which, I explained, could easily be taken out and 
I put in a frame), she took both my hands in hers and said 
she would never, never be able to repay my kindness, a 
demonstration which, judging by their looks, did not al- 
together please some of those about her. 

‘ Oh, I have forgotten all about the books!” she ex- 
claimed, shortly afterward; “ and they were what I most 
wanted to see. But you have so many wonderful things 
j that I am really quite bewildered; Show me the books, 

| please, Mr. Erie.” 

I said they were rather scattered about, and would re- 
i quire getting together, but if she would come again to 
j the saloon I would show her some of them. So we went 
j below a second time, and I fetched a number of books 
from my own berth and some of the other berths, and 
put them on the table. Among them were several bound 
volumes of the Graphic and the Illustrated London News, 


120 


A QUEER RACE. 


and other illustrated works. This was another surprise. 
The only picture the queen had ever seen before was a 
daub by a native artist. Engravings she never had seen 
before. As she turned over the leaves she became al- 
most wild with excitement. 

“ Oh, how I should like to see England!” she ex- 
claimed, after looking at the illustration of some En- 
glish scene. “ Would it be possible to go thither, I won- 
der?” 

On this, all who were in the saloon — and it was quite 
full — regarded her with pained astonishment, as if they 
could hardly believe their own ears. 

“Yes,” she repeated, defiantly, “I should like to see 
England, and so would you, only you are afraid to say so. 
How I hate these hypocrisies!” 

Then she turned to the pictures again. There were 
many which she could not understand, and she was con- 
tinually demanding explanations. 

“ This,” she said, smiling, “reminds me of Hamlet 
and Polonius. It is very like a whale.” 

“ It is a whale,” I said; “those men in the boat are 
harpooning him.” 

“You call it whale-hunting, I suppose?” 

“ 4 Whale-hunting 5 is not bad; but it is generally called 
whale- fishing.” 

“ Did you ever see shark-hunting?” 

“ 1 have seen sharks hunt a man, if that is what you 
mean,” I said, with a shudder, thinking of the terrible 
death of poor Peyton. 

“ I don’t mean that; I mean men hunting sharks — 
' fighting ’ would perhaps be a better way of putting: it.” 

“Never, and I don’t ” 

“ You shall, then. It is splendid sport. We will have 
a hunt to-morrow. Which will you be, a hunter or a 
spectator?” 

“ Well, until I have seen something of the sport I 
think I would rather be a spectator,” I answered, cau- 
tiously. 

“ You are wise,” said the queen, dryly; “ for unless 
you are a strong swimmer and very expert in the 

water However, you will see. I suppose we may 

take some of these books and a few of these cases ashore 
with us?” 


121 


A QUEER RACE. 

To this question there could, of course, be but one an- 
swer; and I was about to give orders accordingly, when 
somebody shouted from the top of the companion that 
Bolsover, who was still at the wheel, wanted me on 
deck. 

The ship was still under way, for at Mab’s request we 
had steamed slowly round the bay, and were now within 
a couple of miles from the place we had selected for an 
anchorage. 

Tom was talking to Amyas Fane, with whom he seemed 
to have struck up a friendship, and who, knowing the 
coast thoroughly, was acting as pilot. 

‘‘Mr. Fane thinks as we had better run a bit further 
on than the place you thought of,” said the boatswain. 
“'He knows of a little inlet where we can moor her, stem 
and stern, and where she’ll be almost as safe as if she 
was in dock. That’ll be better than anchoring.” 

“But is there water enough?” 

“ Enough and to spare. Fourteen feet at low tide 
alongside the rocks.” 

“All right! Nothing could be better; and it will be so 
much handier for landing the cargo. If you and Mr. 
Fane will remain at the -wheel and do what is necessary, 
I’ll stand by the engine.” 

“Av, ay, sir! I’ll pass the word when you are to stop. 
I think you had better slow her a bit now. We shall have 
to send one of them beats ashore with a rope.” 

Half an hour later the ship was safely berthed, and 
moored stem and stern in such a way that she could rise 
and fall with the tide without touching the rocks, which 
rose sheer out of the water on either side of her. 

This done, the cases selected by the queen, and the 
books, were lowered into the largest boat, and we all re- 
turned to Fairhaven. I. was in the same boat with Mab 
and Field; old Tom went with Amyas Fane, and as we 
walked up from the jetty he informed me, rather curtly, 
that he should not go with me to Mr. Field’s, but that he 
was going to stay with Mr. Fane. 

“As you like, Bolsover,” I replied, coldly, for his man- 
ner was not only unfriendly, but almost discourteous. 




A QUEER RACE. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE SHARK FIGHTERS. 

“ What relation is Amyas Fane to the queen?” I asked 
Field, as we sat smoking our pipes in the veranda of his 
house, and watching the crescent moon as it rose out of 
the mist beyond the Painted Rocks. 

“ He is the eldest son of her father’s younger brother, 
and the next in the line of succession.” 

“ You mean that if she were to die, he would become 
king?” 

“ Not king; protector.” 

“ I mean protector. I have no certain information on 
the subject, but I take it for granted that she is not mar- 
ried.” 

“ No,” laughed Field. “ Mab is not married. I wish 
she were.” 

“Nor likely to be?” 

“ Not that I am aware of; nor do I think she favors 
anybody.” 

“ Does anybody favor her?” 

“ Oh, dear, yes! Most of our eligible young men would 
be glad to become Mab’s husband. But 1 suppose she 
will choose for herself in good time.” 

“ Do your Fair Island ladies propose, then?” 

“As often as not. Denzil was a strong advocate for 
the equality of the sexes; he said that when a young 
woman takes a fancy to any particular young man, there 
is no harm in her telling him so.” 

“And is that principle acted on at present?” 

“As often as not. It is sometimes one way, some- 
times the other.” 

1 then asked my host how it was that the queen’s 
expression of a desire to visit England should have caused 
so much surprise, not to say horror, among those who 
heard her. 

“She said that, did she?” exclaimed Field, horrified in 
his turn. “What will she be saying next, I wonder? I 
don’t think she was in earnest, though. She often says out- 
rageous things, just to startle people; and ’pon my word, 
she succeeds. I can easily tell you why they were surprised. 
Her great-great-grandfather was one of the wisest men 


J23 


A QUEER RACE. 

that ever lived. We have to thank him for all our hap- 
piness and prosperity; and there was nothing he more 
insisted upon than the necessity of preserving our inde- 
pendence; and so long as we maintain our isolation and 
keep the existence, or, at any rate, the whereabouts of 
Fair Island secret, we shall be safe from molestation. In 
his time he would let nobody leave the island, except 
perhaps for a sail round the coast, on any pretext what- 
ever; and the rule has been enforced ever since. I ought 
rather to say that nobody has ever so much as expressed 
a desire to break it. (Mr. Fane was wise in his genera- 
tion. The visit of a British man-of-war might have 
been rather awkward for him and some of his compan- 
ions.) You may judge, then, what a sensation Mab's 
declaration of a wish to visit England — which she could 
not well do without quitting the island — must needs 
create. - ” 

“ I think I understand the great DenziPs motives for 
laying down such a rule," I said. “But how about 
strangers who come here by accident, like Bolsover and 
myself, for instance? Are they not allowed to leave?" 

“ The contingency does not seem to have been contem- 
plated. All that Benzil said — you will find it in his val- 
edictory address, written a few months before his decease 
— all that he said was: * Resist hostile strangers to the 
death, but friendly strangers welcome, and give them of 
your best/" 

“Nothing about letting them go?" 

“Nothing; from which I infer that he did not desire 
to lay down any general rule on the subject, but rather 
that his successors should deal with any case that might 
arise strictly on its merits." 

“ So my fate depends on Queen Mab. Suppose, now, 
that after awhile — I am in no particular hurry — suppose 
I desire to leave the island, how shall I carry my purpose 
into effect — how get away? Assuming, of course, that 
the queen makes no objection." 

“ In that big ship of yours. How else?" 

“ If our chance of returning to England depends on 
Bolsover and me getting the Diana past the Painted 
Bocks and through the mist, to say nothing of navigat- 
ing her across the Atlantic, I am afraid we shall have to 


124 A QUEER RACE. 

stay here for the term of our natural lives,” I said, 
gloomily. 

“And would you regard that as a misfortune? Where 
can you find a pleasanter country than this, or one 
where you could enjoy a greater measure of prosperity 
and contentment? The queen and the Council of Nine 
would be only too glad to give you land and slaves, and 
build you a house, "and with your fair skin and red hair 
and beard, you would be sure to have eligible offers of 
marriage ” 

“My hair is not red; it is chestnut,” I interposed, im- 
patiently. 

“ Cali it what you like; I only mean that it is very 
beautiful hair. Everybody admires it. The girls cannot 
keep their eyes off you. And I am sure you will not find 
finer women in the world than the Fanes (my mother 
was a Fane), and if tlieir complexions cannot be described 
as exactly European, they have a beauty all their own. 
It is merely a matter of taste.” 

In this opinion I was able cordially to concur, although 
I did not say (as I thought) that piebald complexions 
were not to my taste. As to Mr. Field’s proposal that I 
should settle on the island for good, I observed that, 
tempting as it was, I did not see my way to accept it; 
that I did not take kindly to the idea of never seeing 
England and my friends there again, and that if my 
mother did not receive news of me before long, she would 
be broken-hearted. To this he made no answer, and 
after some further conversation I repeated an inquiry I 
had already made more than once as to the position of 
the island; and producing a chart, I asked him to give 
me at least an approximate idea of its whereabouts. 

“ Not at present,” he said, with a quiet smile. “ You 
have only been here two or three days: why are you so 
eager to know everything? Have patience, my friend.” 

So I returned the chart to my pocket, and resolved, on 
the first opportunity, to put the same question to Miss 
Mab. To tell the truth, I felt rather disappointed that 
she had not invited me to spend the evening at the 
Queen’s House (formerly Protector’s House), as I found 
her dwelling was called. 

Before we separated for the night. Field informed me 
that, as the shark-killing expedition would set out at sun- 


125 


A QUEER RACE. 

rise, we should have to breakfast by candle-light, and 
that I was to be one of the queen's guests ©n board her 
own yacht. 

J am always punctual, and at five the next morning I 
entered my host's dining-room, arrayed in my flannels, 
and we reached the jetty at the very moment that the 
sun emerged from the sea and chased the shadows from 
the mou ntai n- top. 

We had not long to wait. The day was hardly born 
when the island queen, followed by a gay company of 
male and female Fanes and their kindred (who alone were 
admitted to her intimacy), came trooping down the hill. 
She greeted me very graciously, and invited me to join 
her part}', an invitation which, I need scarcely say, was 
“ accepted with thanks." 

Rather to my surprise, her yacht, the Sunflower, was a 
schooner of some seventy tons burden, solidly built, and 
well fitted and found. So soon as we were on board, 
the order was given to weigh anchor and make sail, and 
followed by several other yachts and a crowd of smaller 
boats, we moved slowly — the wind being light — down the 
creek. 

“There they come?" cried Mab, pointing to a large 
boat, with a lug-sail, for which all the other boats respect- 
fully made way. 

It was the shark* hunters' boat, and contained eight 
men, six of whom were rowing, while one steered, and 
the other seemed to be attending to the sail. The cock- 
swain, and apparently the captain, was Amyas Fane. In 
the bottom of the boat were two or three dark objects 
that looked like bundles of rags. As she passed us 'the 
crew gave a cheer, which was cordially returned by the 
people on the yacht. 

“The shark-fighters, I suppose?" I said to the queen. 

“Yes. What do you think of them?" 

“I never saw a set of finer young fellows in my life." 

And I never had. All were over six feet three, brawny 
and broad-shouldered, deep of chest and long of limb, 
and as lithe and active as so many cats. They were nearly 
naked, wearing only short drawers, but each man had on 
a belt, from which hung a sword, and their black hair 
was confined in a sort of fillet. 

Their boat was ahead, and when she was well into the 


226 


A QUEER RACE. 

bay, about three miles from the furthest headland, the 
lug-sail was lowered, and one of the dark objects (whicli 
turned out to be goats) fastened to a line and thrown into 
the sea. Then the oars were unshipped, and Amyas 
Fane, standing up, saluted the queen, and said, half 
laughingly: 

“ Morituri te salutant.” 

After this a few minutes* silence, during which the 
other boats came up and formed a wide circle round the 
hunters* boat. 

“ Do you see that?** said Mab, in an intense whisper. 

“That** was the dorsal fin of a shark, and the next 
moment the huge fish rolled over, and opening his great 
jaws, bit the goat in two. Then another floated up from 
unseen depths and tried to tear the precious morsel from 
his companion’s mouth, while a third, darting suddenly 
forward, snapped up the remaining portion. 

“Now!” shouted the captain; and six of the hunters, 
drawing their long, sharp swords, slipped quietly over- 
board. 

The sharks, having by this time finished with the 
goat, gave their attention to the new-comers. But while 
they were chasing one, the hunters dived under their 
bellies and stabbed them repeatedly with their swords, 
drawing blood at every stroke. Then, when the wounded 
monsters turned rouud to meet their enemy, the pursued 
would become pursuer, and help the comrade who had 
just helped him. The sharks, bewildered and infuriated, 
dashed hither and thither in wild confusion, lashing the I 
wacer with their tails and dyeing it with their blood. 

This went on for a quarter of an hour. It was horri- | 
ble, yet fascinating. The very intensity of the excite- I 
ment kept the spectators silent. Nobody spoke except ! 
the captain, who gave his orders from the boat like a 
commander during an action. Over and over again I 
thought one or other of the hunters would surely be I 
killed or mutilated; but at the very moment when de- 1 
struction seemed imminent, the almost victim would | 
either evade the snap by an agile turn or dive out of 
sight, or a comrade distract the shark*s attention by a | 
sudden stab One hunter thrust his sword into a shark’s 1 
jaws, and leaving it there, swam to the boat for another. J 

The fight went on fast and furious, until one of the J 


A QUEER RACE. 127 

fishes, turning belly upward, floated to the top of the 
water — dead. 

In obedience to an order from the captain, the hunters 
now returned to the boat for a few minutes’ rest, which 
they had well earned, as also the praises of the queen 
and the plaudits of the spectators. 

In the meantime the surviving sharks had fastened on 
the body of the slain, and others, scenting blood afar, 
were hurrying up to the feast. 

“Have at them again! All !” cried the captain; and 
himself setting the example, plunged into the water 
sword in hand, leaving the boat to take care of itself. 

This time the sharks, occupied with tneir meal, were 
rather taken at a disadvantage; but the creatures being 
so close together, the only way to get at them was to dive 
under their bellies, and much address was required to 
avoid blows from their tails, which were quite capable of 
breaking a limb. As, moreover, other sharks kept com- 
ing up and might take them unawares, two of the hunt- 
ers were told ofi to keep watch and ward, give notice of 
their approach, and afford help where help was most re- 
quired. 

In ten minutes after the opening of the second attack 
two more sharks were numbered with the slain, and al- 
most before the breath was out of their bodies the others 
began to rend their dead companions, an occupation 
which they occasionally varied by a free fight among 
themselves. 

“That makes a fourth.” .said Queen Mab, as another 
shark turned! over on his back. “ They have done very 
well. I think it is almost time to cry, 4 Hold, enough!’ 
What say you?” 

“I am quite of your opinion,” I answered. “Better 
stop before anybody is hurt.” 

“Good! I will order the yellow flag to be run up. 
That is the signal for the combat to cease.” 

The words were hardly spoken, when one of the hunters 
anticipated the signal by emerging from the throng and 
swimming, slowly and painfully, toward the boat. Climb- 
ing over the gunwale with some difficulty, he lay down 
in the stern. 

“That is Bertram Hare,” said Mab, anxiously. “I 
wonder what is the matter? Are you hurt, Bertram?” 


128 


A QUEER RACE . 

“ Nothing to speak of,” answered the young fellow, 
smiling. “ That last beggar we killed gave me a crack 
on the leg just as he was turning over; I rather think it 
is broken.” 

“ I am very sorry. I was in hopes the day would end 
without any mishap. However, Dr. Sergeant will soon 
set you to rights. You will have to keep the house two 
or three weeks, though.” 

“ That is the worst of it. But we have had a splendid 
day's sport, so I must not complain. The fortune of 
war, you know; and it might have been worse. The last 
bout we had, poor Tom Ferrers got bitten in two just as 
I gave the shark that did it the death-stroke.” 

“ What Spartans those fellows are!” I said. “But a 
broken leg cannot surely be cured in two or three 
weeks?” 

“ Not quite; but he will be able to hobble about in two 
or three weeks, and be quite well in five or six.” 

“ In England broken legs take double that time to get 
well.” 

“ Yes; but in England you eat beef and drink beer and 
spirits.” 

“And don't you eat beef and drink beer and spirits?” 

“ As we have no cattle we can have no beef; and in 
the wav of animal food we confine ourselves to fish, fowl, 
and venison, and eat very little even of that — don't care 
for it, in fact. While as for beer and spirits, one of my 
ancestor’s first proceedings when he decided to settle in 
the island was to cast all the rum in the spirit-room of 
the Santa Anna into the sea. When he became protector 
he prohibited the production of strong drink in any 
shape, and the prohibition has been maintained by his 
successors.” 

“'You are all teetotalers, then?” 

“ Teetotalers! What is a teetotaler?” 

“ Don't you know? Ah, I was forgetting. It is a word 
of the present century. Teetotalers are people who re- 
ligiously abstain from strong waters.” 

“ In that case we are teetotalers, for we only drink 
nature's own water.” 

“And athletes,” I added. “Your ancestor was a wise 
man, Queen Mab. I dare say you are all the better with- 


129 


A QUEER RACE. 

out beef and beer. At any rate you look wonderfully 
strong and healthy, and Mr. Field tells me you are very 
long-lived. But you must remember that you have an ex- 
ceptionally fine climate, and spend much of your time in 
the open air; that counts for a very great deal/’ 

“Yes,” she said, significantly, “there are worse places 
to live in than the Fair Island; and though I should cer- 
tainly like to see England ” 

Here she paused, and I seized the opportunity to drop 
a hint that I should like to see England at no distant 
date, and to inquire whether I might reckon on her con- 
sent to my departure and her assistance in getting away. 
But she pretended not to hear (though her ears were as 
sharp as her cousin’s), and instead of answering, asked 
me to dine with her at the Queen’s House. 

“ We are going to have some cock-fighting,” she said, 
“and afterward a dance. Our dances are, of course, 
very old-fashioned; but you will perhaps oblige me by 
teaching us some of the steps that are now the mode in 
England.” 

I bowed, and answered that I should be only too de- 
lighted to oblige her in that or any other way; but I was 
much put about by her refusal to grant my request (for 
that was what it amounted to). I saw that for some rea- 
son or other she was resolved not to let me go; and for 
the first time I began to consider seriously whether it 
would not be possible to find a way of leaving the island 
without her knowledge, and in spite of her evident de- 
sire to detain me. Though as ignorant as ever of our 
exact whereabouts, I had gathered from the records that 
we were “ in the west,” and I felt sure that we were no 
very great distance from some part of the American con- 
tinent. 

When I entered my room at Mr. Field’s house, some 
three hours later, I found lying on my table a three-cor- 
nered note, on very rough paper, addressed in a sprawl- 
ing, schoolboy hand to “ Mr. Erie.” It contained these 
words: 

“Sir, — The Fair Island is not good for your Health, 
and your Presence is not desired. You may take ten Days 
to make your Arrangements for Departure; but if after 
the Expiration of that Time you are still here, you are a3 


530 A QUEER RACE . 

certain as you are living to meet with a serious, if not a 
fatal Accident. 

“A present Friend, but a potential Foe.” 

“ Pleasant!” I thought, after reading this precious 
missive over a second and third time. “The queen re- 
fuses to let me go; and if I stay I am to be murdered!” 


CHAPTER XXI. 

A DANCING LESSON. 

I hate anonymous letters. You can never tell what 
to make of them — whether they are jest or earnest, 
whether the writer really means what he says, or is 
merely amusing himself at your expense. The letter I 
had just received looked like a grim joke; for who could 
suppose that it was possible for me to get away in ten 
days, even though the queen and the Council of Nine 
were as willing to let me go, as they were notoriously un- 
willing? It was hardly conceivable that I had made an 
enemy already, and I could think of nobody who had an 
interest in hastening my departure. 

Yes, it must be a joke; and yet — I felt that there 
might be something in it, after all. But if the rascally 
writer of the letter thought to frighten me, he was mis- 
taken. His threat should not force me to leave the 
island a day sooner than suited my convenience, even 
though I were at full liberty to leave, and the means of 
leaving were at my disposal. 

Had I merely consulted my inclinations, and been able 
to inform my mother of my whereabouts and safety, I 
should have been quite content to make a long stay in 
the island. Queen Mab and her piebald people interested 
me much, and I wanted to see more of them. But the 
Diana was long past due at Montevideo; unless she was 
soon heard of, the owners and underwriters must needs 
conclude that she was lost, with all on board, and my 
mother, who had only me, would be well-nigh heart- 
broken. It was, morever, my duty to inform poor Mrs. 
Peyton, and the other friends of those who had perished, 
so soon as might be, of the fate that had befallen them; 
and I could not forget that the longer I was absent from 
Liverpool the more difficult I should find it to obtain a 


A QUEER RACE. 


131 


situation when I got back. Out of sight is out of mind; 
and if people began to thiuk me dead, they would forget 
me altogether. 

Yet what could I do? It seemed that without the 
queen’s help I could do nothing. For aught I knew, the 
nearest port where it would be possible to obtain a passage 
for Europe or the West Indies might be hundreds of miles 
away. Another voyage in the Diana was out of the ques- 
tion; but if Mab could be persuaded to give me an idea 
of the latitude and longitude of the island, and lend me 
the Sunflower and her crew, the thing might be done. It 
would be asking a great deal, since, apart from her own 
wishes, she could not send her yacht on a distant voyage 
without running counter to the prejudices of her people 
and the injunctions of that remarkable ancestor of hers 
whose will, though he had been dead a century, seemed 
to be still their law. Yet it was my only chance, and if 
I went on as I had begun, and continued to please her, I 
might eventually win her consent to my project. 

On the other hand, I felt that it would be a mistake to 
hurry matters, to weary her by importunity, or appear 
over eager to get away. I must wait for a favorable op- 
portunity to proffer my request, and it would be well, if I 
could, to insure her help by placing her under an obliga- 
tion. My cue, in short, was patience and politeness. 

Should I say anything to her — or anybody else — about 
the anonymous letter? On the whole, I thought not. If 
it were a~hoax, I should only by so doing expose myself to 
ridicule; while if an enemy were the writer, I should be 
putting him on his guard and making him think that 1 
was afraid. Better keep my own counsel and watch and 
wait. 

As the note had come through the post (I did not 
know before that the island possessed a post), I had no 
clew to the identity of the sender. It was a mystery, 
and, for the present, must remain a mystery. 

My next concern was as to how I should attire myself 
for the queen's ball. The evening-dress of Europe was 
not the evening-dress of Fair Island. The latter was a 
modification of the costume in vogue in the time of 
George II. and Sir Robert Walpole; and as the islanders 
had a weakness for bright colors, I did not take kindly 
to the idea of appearing at a festive entertainment in a 


133 A QUEER RACE. 

gn it of black, a color which they reserved exclusively for 
mourning. 

In this dilemma I consulted Field. 

“ A black coat, and of that peculiar shape, too, would 
certainly make you sadly conspicuous — I might almost 
say ridiculous,” he said, when I showed him my swallow- 
tail, “and the queen might think you had mistaken her 
dance for a funeral. Have you nothing a little less som- 
ber — a uniform, for instance?” 

“ I have my uniform as captain in a volunteer rifle 
corps.” (My poor mother made me bring it, rather 
against my own wish. Officers in foreign countries al- 
ways wear their uniforms, she said, and I might find 
mine useful; so I brought it.) 

“ Where is it?” 

“In one of the boxes which came up from the Diana 
an hour ago.” 

“ Wear it, by all means,” advised my host, when he 
had seen the uniform. “Nothing could be better; and 
the queen, who has never seen an English uniform, will 
take it as a compliment. She takes great interest in 
everything that concerns the old country, and that red 
coatwill match well with your — chestnut hair.” 

This point being settled, we went to the cock-fight, 
which took place in a public pit not far from Mr. Field’s 
house. A number of mains were fought, and many birds 
killed. At the outset I was rather disgusted, but after 
awhile I became as excited as the rest. I had never seen 
a main fought before, and I understood for the first time 
why the sport had been so attractive for our ancestors, 
and its suppression so difficult to enforce. Nobody 
showed more excitement or followed the fortunes of the 
various fights with keener enjoyment than Queen Mab. 

“A fine old English sport!” she observed to me, when 
the tournament came to an end. “ 1 hope you have en- 
joyed it.” 

“It was an English sport once, but now, like bull 
and bear-baiting, it is obsolete and illegal — forbidden by 
law.” 

“ Forbidden by law! But why? What can there be 
wrong in it? Not having bulls and bears, we can bait 
neither the one nor the other. But cock-fighting! You 
surprise me, Mr. Erie. What is England coming to?” 


133 


A QUEER RACE. 


“ That is what a good many people used to ask when 
the sport was abolished. It was considered that we had 
no right to make the lower animals destroy each other for 
our amusement ” 

“ Excuse me, sir, but that is surely a very driveling 
argument. You kill the lower animals to satisfy your 
appetites, yet you will not let them fight to make you 
diversion. Besides, the birds like it; would not you, if you 
were a game-cock, rather die fighting than have your 
neck wrung and be put in a pot?” 

“ Certainly. But there were other objections. It was 
considered that public cock-fighting, besides being cruel, 
did harm to those who took part in it — blunted their 
feelings — demoralized them, in fact.” 

“ In that case I must be very much demoralized,” said 
Mab, with flashing eyes and an angry gesture; “ for I 
have taken part, as you call it, in a hundred cock-fights, 
and shall probably take part in hundreds more. So, 
according to your showing, I must be both demoralized 
and incorrigible.” 

“Not at all; anything but that,” I returned, eager to 
repair the fault I had so stupidly committed. “You 
asked me why cock-fighting was abolished in England, 
and I was trying to explain why. I was not giving these 
arguments as my own. Moreover, cock-fighting in Fair 
Island is one thing; cock-fight:’ ' 1 ” i 



another thing. It was made 


fell into bad hands, and became a public nuisance. As 
for. you, I am sure that no one who has ever seen Queen 
Mab could doubt that she was other than ” 

Here I hesitated. 

“What, sir?” — peremptorily. 

“A right noble woman.” 

She smiled; and I liked her none the less for being 
sensible to a little flattery. 

“You are coming to my ball, of course?” 

“Of course.” 

“Iam afraid you will find our dances rather old-fash- 
ioned; but you shall teach us some of the new ones. I 
saw a mention in one of those illustrated papers of a 
waltz. I think I should like to waltz. Will you show 
me how?” 


134 


A QUEER RACE. 

i bowed, and said I should be delighted to teach her 
anything in my power. 

The ball was a great success. The orchestra consisted 
of a flute, a clarionet, a key-bugle, a Carib guitar, and a 
set of Pan’s-pipes. The flute seemed to be new, but the 
clarionet and bugle looked old enough to have belonged 
to the bandsmen of the Hecate or the Santa Anna. Yet 
they produced very fair music, and though the men played 
without notes, they had a great variety of airs, some of 
which struck me as being singularly wild and beautiful. 

My uniform made quite a sensation, and, judging by 
the compliments I received, it was much admired. Be- 
fore I had been many minutes in the room I booked sev- 
eral engagements; for. as Fair Island ladies deem it not 
unmaidenlv to ask men (on occasion) to be their partners 
for life, they naturally see no impropriety in asking them 
to take part in a dance. They were all tall, fine women; 
not a few were very well favored, barring the queerness 
of their complexion, and two or three were as fair as 
Queen Mab herself. They were lively, too, and wonder- 
fully graceful in their movements, dancing with a zest 
and energy unknown to the languid beauties of European 
ballrooms. Being, moreover, the descendants of the 
Hecate’s officers (the descendants of able-bodied and 
ordinary seamen and warrant-officers not being admitted 
into society), they were intelligent, and, considering 
their opportunities, well educated. Most of them had 
read Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, “ Plutarch’s Lives,” 
“ Robinson Crusoe,” and “ Pamela,” and were acquainted 
with the leading facts of European history up to about 
1740. From that time forward, so far as regards the 
outer world, their minds, like the minds of Fair Island- 
ers generally, were a blank; and it is hardly possible for 
those who have not tried it to realize the difficulty of 
keeping up a conversation with people who know nothing 
of George III. and Napoleon, Nelson and Wellington, the 
Reform Bill and Queen Victoria, the Indian Mutiny and 
the American Civil War, Bismarck and the G. 0. M. ; 
who have never seen a daily newspaper, a monthly re- 
view, or a railway; never heard of the United States, 
Australia, New Zealand, or the Suez Canal, lighting by 
gas or printing by steam, and whose knowledge of fiction 
is limited to “ Robinson Crusoe” and “Pamela.” 


185 


A QUEER RACE. 

In those circumstances it was perhaps fortunate that I 
had little to do except answer questions, the ladies whose 
acquaintance I made being insatiably curious. But I. 
soon found that if I wanted to be believed I must keep 
back a portion of the truth. When, in answer to a ques- 
tion about the size of London, I said that its population 
was nearly four millions, and that a hundred thousand 
strangers left and entered it every day, the significant 
smile which went round told me that the statement was 
regarded as monstrous and incredible. My account of 
the electric telegraph and some other modern scientific 
and mechanical achievements was received with even 
greater incredulity, especially by the men, who, though 
too polite openly to doubt my word, obviously thought 
me an unconscionable romancer. 

Only the queen affected to believe me, either because 
she was naturally more intelligent than the others, or that 
she was fresh from the perusal of the books and periodi- 
cals which we had brought from the Diana — or for some 
other and less obvious reason. 

The first dance was a Sir Roger de Coverley, in which I 
had Mab for a partner; then followed a minuet, which, 
at her pressing instance, 1 attempted — with poor success, 
however. There was an immense deal of bowing on the 
part of the men, and courtesying on the part of the 
women, the latter bending so low that more than one 
disaster seemed imminent; but they always recovered 
their perpendicular with remarkable agility and grace. 
bDxt came a fandango, doubtless a bequest from Denzil 
Fane's Spanish wife. After this the queen asked me to 
show her how to waltz. She proved an apt pupil — ac- 
quired the step in a few minutes; I whistled to the mu- 
sicians a few bars of a waltz, which they picked up in no 
time, and the next moment we were whirling round the 
room — to the astonishment of all beholders. They had 
never seen anything like it before. We had a long spin 
— Mab being in excellent wind — and when I escorted her 
to her seat, I could see by the manner of some of the 
younger men that they envied me my good fortune, and 
that the favor shown me by the queen was beginning to 
excite jealousy, and might make me enemies. Be that 
as it may, waltzing became the fashion. All wanted to 
learn the step at once, and I had very nearly as many in- 


136 A QUEER RACE. 

vitations to dance as there were young women in the room. 
They voted me dancing-master by acclamation, and for 
the remainder of the night we did nothing in the world 
hut waltz. 

“ We are infinitely obliged to you/ 5 said the queen, as 
I took my leave early in the morning. “ You have given 
ns a new pleasure.” 

“ He has, indeed!” chorused twenty voices. “ We are 
all infinitely obliged to him!” 

“ Waltzing is simply divine!” she continued. “ We 
will have another ball — yes, the night after to-morrow. 
All who are here consider yourselves invited, and perhaps 
Mr. Erie will kindly teach us something else.” 

With this request I was, of course, only too glad to 
comply. I taught them the polka and the schottische, 
and we had a try at the lancers, with all of which the 
queen and her guests were greatly delighted; and Field 
told me that if I went on as I had begun, I should soon 
be the most popular person in Fair Island. 

I was, moreover, often consulted by the queen about 
the books she was reading. She found in them so many 
things that were strange to her, so many allusions which 
she did not understand, that she required almost contin- 
ual instruction, and I became actually, if not officially, 
the director of her studies and the superintendent of 
her new education— for that she called it, and that, in 
fact, it was. 

All this augured well for the success of my scheme. I 
could hardly think that after I had done so much for her 
she would refuse me the favor I intended to ask. Never- 
theless, 1 hesitated and procrastinated, missing more than 
one seemingly good opportunity of preferring my request. 
Why, I can hardly say; partly, perhaps, because some- 
thing told me that it was still too soon — that the propi- 
tious moment had not yet arrived; partly because the 
Fair Islanders improved on acquaintance, and that the 
more I saw of them and their country the less I liked the 
idea of leaving them.” 

As for the anonymous letter, I had come to the conclu- 
sion that it was either a poor joke or a piece of stupid 
spite, and though I kept the missive in my pocket, it v< 
soon passed out of my mind. 


A QUEER RACE . 


137 


CHAPTER XXII. 

A FLASH OF LIGHTNING. 

And so things went on. For two or three weeks there 
occurred nothing to disturb the even tenor of ray life. In 
the company of Field and Amyas Fane and some others, 
and once with a party organized by the queen, I visited 
several estates and saw something of the interior of the 
island. All the piebald whites and most of the descend- 
ants of the former Carib chiefs owned plantations which 
they cultivated, with the help of slaves; for land was so 
plentiful and the soil so fertile that very few of the 
aborigines would labor for hire. So far as I could see, 
the slaves, though not ill-treated, were very hard wrought, 
for in the absence of horses they had to do horses* work. 
They were, however, comfortably lodged and well fed, 
and as, according to a law laid down by Denzil Fane, no 
bondsman could be sold without his own consent, there 
were presumably none of those cruel separations of fami- 
lies which are usually among the worst features of the 
system. Insubordination was, however, severely punished, 
rebellious slaves being hanged without ceremony, and, as 
Field one day confided to me, the two races were really 
at bitter enmity. There had been several partial risings 
repressed, and, as I gathered, not without difficulty. 

“ The Calibans are our greatest trouble/* he said. 
“ They are increasing at such a rate that they will soon 
be more numerous than ourselves, and if a rising should 
happen to coincide with an invasion of the Cariberoes, it 
would be a serious matter.** 

“ The Cariberoes?*'' 

“ The people whom Denzil Fane and his men helped 
to repulse when they first came to the island. The Cali- 
bans are their descendants, and they are very strong and 
brave, and would make desperate fighters.** 

“What makes you think so?** 

“ Because they are very courageous. We have had ex- 
perience of their prowess", though not very recently. It 
was they who taught ns how to fight sharks, and they often 
fight fiercely among themselves. Yes, the Cariberoes 
would make" splendid soldiers.** 

“Have you any present reason to fear a rising?’ 1 


138 A QUEER RACE. 

“No, I don’t think we have; still, there is no telling 
what may happen. But we are well prepared. Oar 
young men are regularly drilled. You shall see a parade 
of our archer-guard one of these days.” 

“Archer-guard! Are your soldiers armed only with 
bows and arrows, then?” 

“ Necessarily. Our store of gunpowder, being very 
limited, is reserved for the artillery, which consists of 
half a dozen brass pieces, part of the Santa Anna’s arma- 
ment. That is why I inquired whether you had any gun- 
powder on board the Diana. But our archers would make 
no despicable foes, even when opposed to men armed with 
muskets.” 

Mr. Field spoke of the flint-lock muskets of the previ- 
ous century, and when I saw the archer-guard and ex- 
amined their weapons, I was quite of his opinion. None 
of their bows, when unstrung, was less than six feet' in 
length; and their arrows were even longer than the cloth- 
yavd shafts' which won for England the battles of 
Agincourt and Crecy, and did such dire execution 
among the Scots at Fiodden Field. The Fair Islanders, 
moreover, were splendid marksmen; a good shot could 
easily hit a bull’s-eye at three hundred and fifty yards, 
and as easily kill a deer (or a man) at four hundred. 
Compared with theirs, the native bow was a very in- 
ferior weapon; and I felt sure, as I told Field, that the 
five hundred Archers of the Guard would be more than 
a match for three times their number of Calibaus or 
Cariberoes. 

After some further conversation, I ventured to sug- 
gest the danger he apprehended might be avoided by 
abolishing slavery altogether. If I had proposed to 
abolish the island and declare the memory of Denzil Fane 
accursed, he could scarley have looked more horrified. 

“Abolish slavery! What on earth put so preposterous 
an idea into^your head? Slavery is a beneficent institu- 
tion. Scripture nowhere condemns it: the Jews prac- 
ticed it; the apostles approved of it; and so far as we are 
concerned, my dear sir, the remedy would be worse than 
the disease. If we liberated these people, they would of 
a surety conspire against our commonwealth, and en- 
deavor to overthrow it, for they are fierce and truculent. 
Moreover, we should all have to become hewers of wood 


130 


A QUEER RACE. 

and drawers of water, because once they were free they 
would work only for themselves. ” 

This was conclusive, and as I could not have answered 
Mr. Field without the risk of giving serious offense, I al- 
lowed the subject to drop. 

In the meantime, the Diana’s cargo was being unloaded 
and brought up to Fairhaven, but rather fitfully and 
slowly; for the ship contained an immense quantity of 
merchandise of one sort and another, and the warehouse 
accommodation at the queen’s disposal was decidedly lim- 
ited. The bales and cases had to be stowed anywhere 
and everywhere, and there being no draught animals in 
the island, the labor of shifting and carrying the pack- 
ages about was very great. In these' circumstances I 
suggested to Mab and the Council of Nine that it would 
be better to let the remainder of the cargo stay where it 
was. 

“You have landed the bulk of it,” I said; “ what 
there is left can be brought up as you want it, and when 
you want it. The ship being securely moored, it is quite 
safe where it is.” 

“ A happy thought, Mr. Erie,” exclaimed Mab. “ Let 
it be so. To-morrow we will go down to the Diana, and 
see for ourselves what there is left; we may perchance 
find some more books, and you will perhaps be so oblig- 
ing as to take out the remaining mirrors. Morris shall 
go with us.” 

Morris was a carpenter, and he had fixed up one mir- 
ror in the queen’s bedroom so much to her satisfaction 
that she wanted to have all the remaining mirrors taken 
out of the saloon and fixed up in like manner. As for 
books, she was simply insatiable. She read anything 
that came to hand, but liked best something scientific, 
or a novel with plenty of incident and a complicated 
plot. When once she became interested in a story of 
this sort, she would neither sleep nor attend to business 
until she reached the end, and woe betide the councilor 
who at such a time ventured to trouble her with affairs 
of State. When Mr. Thomas, a rather timid old gentle- 
man, secretary to the council, brought her some papers 
to sign whileshe was reading “ Monte-Cristo,” and did 
not go away the moment he was bid, she half frightened 


140 A QUEER RACE . 

the poor man to death by threatening to set her puma at 
him. 

We went down to the Diana as arranged, by water of 
course. In addition to the boat's crew and the carpenter, 
we were accompanied by Marian Lester, one of the queen’s 
maidens, and a youth of the name of Buttercup, who was 
half page, half errand-boy. 

On reaching the ship, I looked over the manifest, on 
which I had ticked oft the packages already landed, and, 
in consultation with Mab, decided what others we should 
take back with us in the boat, and told the men to hoist 
them out of the hold. 

Then, while Morris was removing the mirrors, we took 
a turn round the ship, and made an inspection of the 
cabins, on the chance of finding anything likely to be 
useful and worth carrying away; for we did not intend to 
make another visit to the ship for some time. 

In the captain’s cabin were a thermometer and a ba- 
rometer. 

“We will have these,” I said, looking at them. 
“This is a self-registering thermometer, and I want to 
ascertain the average temperature of Fairhaven, and the 
barometer may prove very useful. It gives warning of 
storms. Do you ever have storms?” 

“ Sometimes, and very bad ones. But they don’t often 
take us by surprise. I have nearly always a premonition 
of them; so have others.” 

“ I suppose yon can tell by the look of the sky and the 
direction and force of the wind?” 

The queen laughed. 

“The look of the sky and the force of the wind!” she 
said. “Why, when the clouds gather and the wind rises 
the storm has begun. These are signs which children 
may read. What I mean is, that before any sign is 
visible, while the heavens are still clear, the sea still 
calm, something tells me — I know not what; it is a 
feeling, a foreboding — that within a few hours the 
weather will change for the worse.” 

“ That comes from increase of pressure,” I said. 
“You are sensitive to atmospheric conditions.” 

“ I don’t know how that is. I dare say you are right,” 
she returned, pensively. “ But I have exactly the same 
feeling when people are thinking evil against nie.” 


A QUEER RACE . 141 

“ But that is not possible. Nobody can think evil 
against you!” 

“ Yet such a thing has happened, my friend. Fair 
Island is very beautiful, and its people are happv, but 
they are not all good. And lately— the last few days— I 
have had a foreboding. For three nights past, Cato, 
who, as you know, sleeps always at my chamber door, has 
growled fiercely, as if he scented danger; and this morn- 
ing I was wakened by Denzil Fane’s sword falling 
from the wall and clashing on the floor; and, worse 
still, it broke off at the hilt. Nothing could be more 
ominous of evil— and then this foreboding, the like of 
which for intensity I have never experienced be- 
fore ” 

Here she came to an abrupt stop. 

“ A foreboding of what?” I asked. 

I had already discovered that the islanders were some- 
what superstitious; but I thought Mab knew better than 
to believe in signs, omens, and presentiments, or attach 
importance to the falling of a sword or the growling of a 
puma. 

“ A foreboding of danger.” 

“ To whom?” 

“ To myself, to the commonwealth, and to von, Mr. 
Erie.” 

“ Why to me?” 

“ I know not. But I am sure the danger which threat- 
ens me threatens you also. The foreboding weighs heav- 
ily on my soul, yet whence it comes or how it is caused I 
cannot say. When we return to Fairhaven I will consult 
Sybil.” 

“Who is Sybil?” 

“The oldest and wisest w<hnan in the island; the only 
one to whom it is given to interpret dreams and foretell 
events.” 

“ A very useful woman to know. I should like to ask 
her a few questions about myself. My own future is de- 
cidedly obscure at present. Perhaps she could throw a 
little light on it,” I said, with mock gravity. 

“It is only when she is in the mood that Sybil can dis- 
cern the shadow of coming events,” returned Mab, coldly, 
and almost sternly, as if she resented the skepticism which 
my remark implied. “ The prophetic mantle rests not 


142 


A QUEER RACE. 

always on her shoulders. But you shall see her, and then 
you can judge for yourself. And now let us go on with 
our inspection.” 

As we passed through one of the berths— I think it 
was poor Bulnois* — I saw a carpet-bag in one corner. 

“ What is here?” I said, opening it. 

“ Books!” exclaimed the queen. “ Let us see what they 
are.” 

So I carried the bag into the saloon, and emptied on 
the table at least a score of volumes, the greater part of 
them novels. 

“ There!” I said, taking up a copy of “ The Woman in 
White.” “ You have only to begin reading this, and you 
will forget all about your melancholy forebodings, and 
the supposed dangers which a too active imagination lias 
conjured up.” 

“ Is it very interesting?” she asked, with sparkling 
eyes. 

“ Very.” 

“I will’begin it at once,” she said, and suiting the 
action to the word, she sat down, and opening the volume, 
settled herself for a good read. “ Let me know when the 
boat is ready.” 

An hour later the boat was ready, but so crowded with 
bales, cases, and one thing and another, that it was evi- 
dent she could not take us all back at one trip. 

On this I went below to the queen, whom I found deep 
in Wilkie Collins’ thrilling romance, and after explaining 
the difficulty we were in, suggested that she and her 
personal attendants should go off in the boat, and that 
two of the men and myself would wait on board until an- 
other could be sent to take us off. 

“ No; let the people go. They can send a boat for us 
when they get to Fairhaven — I mean for you, myself, 
Marian, and Buttercup.” 

“ It cannot be here for two hours, and in much less 
time than that it will be dark.” 

“ I am not afraid of the dark. You have lamps, I sup- 
pose?” 

“Yes, we have lamps; still ” 

“ Let the boat go, I say!” and the next moment her 
head was again bent over her book. 

I went on deck, gave orders for the boat to shove off. 


143 


A QUEER RACE. 

and told the cockswain to send another for ns with all 
speed, the instant he arrived. This done, I lighted a 
cigar and paced to and fro, absorbed in thought, until 
the thickening twilight warned rm^that it was time to trim 
the saloon lamp. 

Mab was still reading, nor until I lighted the lamp 
which swung over her head did she look up. 

“Thank you,” she said; and then turning round, 
looked intently through one of the ports toward the al- 
most departed sun. “ There is going to be a storm,” she 
added, wistfully. 

“ Why should you think so?” I' asked. “The sky is 
perfectly clear, and there is hardly a breath of wind.” 

“ You will see. I hope it won't be more than a storm 
— a tempest, I mean. But there is a feeling in the air. 
Is the ship quite fast — safely moored, I mean?” 

“Quite. I looked to that the moment I came on 
board.” 

“Good! We are safe, then. The boat will be here in 
an hour. That will be time enough,” and then she took 
up her book again, and I went once more on deck. 

The short twilight had now almost deepened into dark- 
ness, and I was quite alone, Marian being with her mis- 
tress, and Buttercup fast asleep in a corner of the saloon. 
I lighted another cigar, and was about to resume my soli- 
tary walk where I had left off, when it occurred to me 
to verify the queen's weather-forecast by glancing at the 
barometer. 

The result was startling. The mercury had fallen 
several points since I last looked at it — that is to say, 
in three hours. 

“Gad, she is right!” I thought; “we are in for a 
storm, and no mistake — a regular ripper! I hope it won't 
burst before we get back to Fairhaven. The creek is 
certainly not the open sea, and we are safely moored. 
All the same, I would rather be on dry land for choice.” 

I looked round, for, as yet, the darkness was far from 
being absolute. Myriads of stars studded the sky, and 
the sea was phosphorescent. The creek shone like a 
river of molten gold, and as the tide (thereabouts very 
strong) ebbed rapidly past, fiery wavelets broke on the 
shore and dashed merrily against the Diana's sides. The 
mountain, its summit pointing toward the Southern 


141 


A QUEER RACE. 

Cross, loomed large and silent under the vaulted sky, 
like some monstrous genie guarding hidden treasure, or 
a giant sentinel keeping watch over the sleeping island 
that nestled at its base. 

Westward, as well as northward and southward, the 
calm was complete, and anything more superb than the 
orb-gemmed heavens and the shining sea it were impossi- 
ble to imagine; but out of the mist and beyond the 
Painted Rocks were beginning to creep ominous shadows 
— shadows that swiftly took the form of clouds, and 
spreading pall -like over the sky, swallowed up the stars 
and turned the water to an inky blackness.” 

It became so dark that I had to grope my way to the 
binnacle, intent on lighting the lantern, as without some- 
thing to denote our whereabouts the people who were 
coming to fetch us off would be unable to find the ship. 
There was a peculiar feeling in the atmosphere, too, that 
made me think it was strongly charged with electricity. 
My temples throbbed as if they would burst, when I pushed 
my hand through my hair I could hear it crackle. 

I had reached the binnacle, and was feeling about for 
the lantern, when a terrific peal of thunder crashed over 
the mountain, and along, vivid flash of forked lightning 
rent the clouds asunder, bringing every object which it 
illumined into sharpest relief. It did not last the hun- 
dredth part of a second, yet I saw everything — the creek, 
the sea, the tali masts of the Diana, the very leaves 
quivering on the trees — and the figure of a man cutting 
one of the ropes by which the ship was moored to the shore! 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

A TERRIBLE NIGHT. 

I saw it distinctly — a man hacking at the rope with a 
long knife; and if his back had not been turned toward 
me I should have seen his face — possibly recognized him. 
Yet I could hardly believe my eyes. I thought they had 
deceived me, and tried to persuade myself that I was the 
victim of an optical illusion. But my doubts were 
quickly and rudely dispelled. The next moment the ship 
swung round, and the second rope, unable to withstand 
the strain, or perhaps weakened by the slash of another 


145 


A QUEER RACE. 

knife, parted with a report like the shot of a pistol, and 
the Diana was adrift. 

I ran to the helm without any definite idea of what I 
should do, for I knew how helpless we were, and I feared 
we should be dashed against the opposite side of the 
creek. It was, perhaps, the best thing that could happen 
to us; if we were carried out into the bay we should be 
past praying for. Just then I heard the sound of hurried 
footsteps. 

“ What has happened, Mr. Erie? Where are you?” 
asked a voice which I recognized as that of Queen Mab. 

“ At the wheel. Somebody has cut the ropes, and the 
ship is adrift.” 

“ Somebody has cut the ropes? What do you mean? 
How do you know?” 

“ When the lightning flashed just mow, I saw a man 
cutting the stern- rope.” 

“ Saw you his face?” 

‘‘No.” 

“You have no idea who he was, then?” 

“ Not the least.” 

“Somebody was thinking evil against us, then, and 
plotting it. My foreboding has soon come true, yet you 
did not believe it, Mr. Erie.” 

“ You were right, too, about the weather,” I answered, 
evasively. “ The barometer has gone down rapidly, and 
we are going to have a night of it. My God!” 

Another blinding flash of lightning, followed by an 
even more terrific peal of thunder than the first. At the 
same time a violent gust of wind, coming down the chan- 
nel of the creek as through a funnel, drove the ship be- 
fore it like a straw, and almost threw her on her beam- 
ends. 

Mabel was now close by me, holding on to the binna- 
cle. 

“How will it end? I mean, what is likely to be our 
fate?” she asked, quietly, and with no more fear in her 
voice than if she were putting an ordinary question. 

“Drowning is likely to be our fate. Even if the ship 
were manned by a full crew, and commanded by a skill- 
ful captain, we should be in great danger; and there is 
Only one man on board, and he no seaman.” 

“ If it is God's will for us to perish, so be it. He knows 


146 A QUEER RACE. 

best, and we can die but once. We cannot escape our 
destiny.” 

This answer, spoken with measured gravity, surprised 
me exceedingly. Never before had I heard Mab mention 
religion. I had thought her practically a pagan, though 
she did go to church sometimes. 

“ We cannot escape our destiny,” she repeated. <e Still, 
I like not to yield without a struggle. It is our duty to 
live as long as we can. Must we drift helplessly on? 
Can you think of no expedient? There is surely ail 
anchor?” 

“ Of course there is. What an ass I am! Why didn't 
I think of that before? But I told you I was no seaman. 
Yes, we will let go the anchor — if we can — and put a 
light in the mizzen-top, and then, when the boat comes, 
it may perhaps be seen, and ourselves rescued.” 

But the idea was much more easily conceived than car- 
ried out. A light was indispensable, and after several 
unsuccessful attempts to obtain one from a match, we 
were compelled to go into the saloon, and there light a 
lantern. Then, followed by Marian and Buttercup, we 
made our way forward with great difficulty, for the si tip 
was rolling like a log, and the decks were wet and slip- 
pery with the whirling spray, which lashed our faces and 
impeded our progress. 

It was an exciting moment; Mab clinging to the cap- 
stan and holding up the latern; Marian and the boy cow- 
ering behind a coil of ropes; myself, maul in hand, 
groping for the pin by which the chain is fastened to 
the ring of the anchor. 

After a good deal of hammering — for I made several 
bad shots — I succeeded, though more by good luck than 
address. The anchor dropped into the sea, and the huge 
cable flew through the hawse-hole in a sheet of flame. 
What with the wind and tide, the ship had a good deal 
of way on her; and when the anchor took ground, she 
brought to with a shock that shook her like a leaf, dashed 
the lantern from Mab’s hand, and sent me sprawling 
into the scupper. 

We had to find our way aft in the dark — no easy task, 
for the force of the wind increased every minute, and 
the ship heaved and rolled viciously. 

“ Can we do anything more?” asked Mab, when we 


147 


A QUEER RACE. 

were all in the saloon. She had lost her hat; her dishev- 
eled hair was damp with spray; her face flushed with ex- 
posure to the storm, her eyes aglow with excitement; and 
as she stood there near the swinging-lamp, erect and 
fearless, she looked wondrously handsome. 

“ The only tiling more we can do,” I said, “is to hang 
a lantern in the mizzen-top; not that I think it will be 
of any use. No boat could live in this sea; but it is well 
not to throw away a chance.” 

“ How long do you suppose we shall have to remain 
here, then ?” 

“ That depends on how long the storm lasts; but at any 
rate until sunrise.” 

“In that case I may as well resume my interrupted 
novel. If any change takes place either for the better 
or worse, Mr. Erie, kindly let me know.” And with 
that she sat down and went on with her reading as un- 
concernedly as if she had been in her own room at Fair- 
haven. 

As for me, I lighted another lantern, and after at least 
three narrow escapes of falling overboard, succeeded in 
fixing it securely in the mizzen-top. 

This done, I returned to the quarter-deck and remained 
there — I cannot say on the lookout, as there was nothing 
to be seen — for I had an uneasy feeling that something 
would happen, and not for the better. The wind con- 
tinued to blow in gusts so fierce that I was more than 
once nearly carried over the taffrail. I could not have 
made my way to the forepart of the ship to save my life; 
and though the cable was invisible, I knew that the strain 
on it must be terrific. And the wind did not always 
come from the same quarter. Several times it veered 
completely round, the ship veering with it, till at last 
(being unable to see the compass) I had not the most 
remote idea in which direction lay the land. This went 
on some hours, and about midnight (as nearly as I could 
tell) what 1 dreaded came to pass — the anchor began to 
drag. At first I thought I might be mistaken, but when 
I felt sure that the ship moved I went below and in- 
formed Mab. 

“I am not surprised,” she said, laying down her book. 
“ This wind would move anything. What shall we do?” 

“ Wait the issue of events. What else can we do? 


148 A QUEER RACE. 

We are helpless. It is impossible to let go another 
anchor." 

“That settles the question. Well, if we cannot strug- 
gle, we may at least hope. Whither are we moving?” 

“ I don't know. I have not another lantern. One was 
broken in the bows; another is at the mizzen-top. The 
rest must have been taken ashore. I only hope we are 
not moving toward the island. In that case it won't be 
long before the ship is dashed to pieces.” 

“ And if we are moving toward the Painted Rocks it 
will be still worse.” 

“ Perhaps. But we shall be longer in getting there.” 

“ We are between Scylla and Charvbdis.” 

“Very much so; and if the cable parts But we 

may possibly keep on dragging until the wind goes down, 
and that, I take it, is our sole hope, if you can call it 
hope.” 

“ At any rate, there is hope; and while hope exists 
despair would be a crime. I don't despair; do you?” 

“ It would be a crime if I did, with such an example 
of high courage before me.” 

This was no mere compliment. In truth, she bore 
herself so bravely, and looked so bright and serene withal, 
that I could not for very shame allow myself to be discour- 
aged, although, to tell the truth, I should have been sorry 
(speaking professionally) to insure the ship or our own 
lives for a premium of ninety-five per cent. 

“ You are surely not going on deck again?” she said, as 
I made toward the companion. “You can do no good, 
and you must be very tired. Sit down here and rest 
awhile.” 

The queen was right. My presence >on deck just then 
could serve no useful purpose, so I gladly accepted her 
invitation; and I was so overcome with excitement and 
fatigue that I had hardly sat down when I fell fast 
asleep. 

I must have slept a long time, for I was awakened by 
Mab telling me that day was breaking, and suggesting 
that we had better go on deck. 

The storm was still raging, the anchor still dragging, 
and all round was a wild waste of angry water lashed into 
foam by the fierce and fitful wind. On one side of us lay 
the island, shrouded in gloom; oil the other were faintly 


A QUEER RACE. 149 

visible the Painted Rooks, against which the waves were 
beating with a long, hollow roar like that of distant thun- 
der. The sun was above the horizon, shining through a 
deep rift in the heavy clouds, like a fiery ball at the bot- 
tom of a hole, and throwing a ruddy glare over the heav- 
ing sea. 

It was a grand, yet dreary and awful scene, and though 
Mab still looked calm and confident, and I tried to be 
hopeful, I saw no way of escape. The ship being invisi- 
ble from the shore, we could expect no help from that 
quarter, even if a boat could have weathered the storm; 
and, unless 1 was much mistaken, we were a long way 
past Fairhaven and the Greek. The Diana was moving 
in a direction nor’- west by west — that is to say, obliquely 
toward the Painted Rocks. The rate of her progress 
was regulated by the wind; when it blew hard she went 
fast; when the wind fell off, as it did at intervals, she be- 
came almost stationary. But, at the utmost, we couid 
not count on a respite of more than three or four hours; 
and once among the Painted Rocks, our doom would be 
sealed. The ship must needs go to pieces at once, and 
the strongest swimmer in the world could not resist the 
impact of those terrible waves. The storm, moreover, 
showed no sign of abatement, and as the barometer was 
as low- as ever, we could not count on any change for the 
better before night — perhaps not even then. 

“ Not a very cheerful outlook,” said Mab, after a long 
silence, during w'hich her thoughts had doubtless been of 
the same color as my own. “Nevertheless, I have a 
strong feeling that we shall escape, though I confess I 
don’t see how; and, as you know, my presentiments have 
a w r ay of coming true. And I dreamed, a little while 
ago, as I slept in the saloon, that I saw a rainbow.” 

“You consider that a good omen?” 

“ How could you wish for a better? And, see, there is 
a rainbow!” 

It was true. Rain had begun to fall, and over the 
rocks and the mist, and, as it seemed, touching them 
both, hung a most beautiful bow. But only for a mo- 
ment; a black cloud passed before the sun, and the 
“sign” vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. 

“Keep up your courage, Mr. Erie!” exclaimed Mab. 


150 


A QUEER RACE. 

“I am now sure that we shall escape. The rainbow was 
sent to give us new hope/’ 

Hardly had she spoken, when, as if to belie her words, 
the wind, which had lately fallen off a little, rose again, 
and the Diana drifted more rapidly than before. Hearer 
and nearer she drove toward the fatal rocks, and the din 
of the waves beating against them, and the roar of the 
storm, were so great that we could not hear each other 
speak. It seemed a3 if nothing on earth could prevent 
our destruction. But as we drew within a mile of the 
barrier, the wind lulled once more, and the anchor 
ceased to drag. 

Death now literally stared us in the face. When the 
next gust came we should not have five minutes to live. 

I went forward to the bows to look at the cable. It 
was all paid out, and as rigid as a bar of iron. I was 
watching it intently, and wondering how near it was to 
the “breaking strain/’ when Mab joined me. 

“ What do you think of the rainbow now?” I said. 
“It does not appear to have done us much good.” 

“I shall not give up hope, Mr. Erie, until the ship is 
on those rocks and I find myself in the water,” was the 

undaunted reply; “and even then Good heavens! 

what is that?” 

“ Where?” 

“ Beyond the Painted Rocks.” 

I looked, but saw nothing; and then, remembering how 
much sharper were the queen’s eyes than mine, I had re- 
course to my glass. Well might she exclaim and stand 
with outstretched arm and blanched face. A great wall 
of water, black and solid, higher than the Painted Rocks, 
higher than the Diana’s masts, was coming out of the 
mist and sweeping swiftly toward us. 

For a moment I was too much taken aback either to 
think or speak. I was lost in astonishment and dread. 

But by a strong effort I recovered my presence of mind. 

“ It must be a tidal wave,” I said. “ I have often 
heard of them, but this is the first I ever saw. If it 
strikes us while the ship is at anchor we shall go under 
and never come up again; I am enough of a sailor to 
know that.” 

“ What will you do, then?” 

“Slip the cable and trust to Providence.” 


A QUEER RACE , 


151 


“ Well said, Mr. Erie. Can I do anything to help 
you?” 1 

“ Yes; there is only one hatch open. Shut it, and tell 
Marian and Buttercup to stay where they are. Then 
lash yourself firmly to something.” 

All this passed in a few seconds, and I stood by, maul 
in hand, ready to slip the cable, taking care not to do it 
too soon, lest the ship should drive on the rocks before 
we were overtaken by the wave. As it leaped over them' 
I knocked the pin out of the shackle. Away flew the 
cable, and without a moment's delay I lashed myself to 
the capstan. Mab had fastened herself to the foremast. 

What happened next 1 can hardly tell. The huge 
wave curled over us, then a cascade of green water fell on 
the deck, and for a minute or two all was darkness. We 
were under water, and I verily thought the ship was 
going to the bottom; but she came up again like a strong 
swimmer after a deep dive, and sometimes on her beam- 
ends, sometimes stern foremost, rolling, pitching, plung- 
ing, gyrating like a twig on a mill-stream, was carried 
madly forward on the crest of that mighty wave. 

i began to think we were out of the frying-pan into the 
fire; for to be flung ashore at the speed we were going 
would be quite as bad as falling foul of the Painted 
Rocks. 

The coast toward which we were driving was strange 
to me — a part of the island I had not seen before — low 
and thickly wooded, and I saw no signs of life or culti- 
vation. On sped the wave, as remorseless as fate; it 
rushed up a sandy beach, carried us over the tree tops, 
and finally landed the Diana high and dry, stranded in a 
ravine at least two miles from the shore. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

SAVED. 

We were saved, but I was so dazed with the speed at 
which we had driven, the rolling of the ship, the rush of 
the wave, and the tumult of the storm, so overwrought 
with excitement and suspense, that it took me sometime 
to realize the fact and to make sure that the sea had done 
its worst, and that I might safely unloose myself from 
the capstan. 


152 


A QUEER RACE. 

So soon as I fully recovered my senses, my first thought 
was of Queen Mab. She was still lashed to the foremast 
— like myself, drenched to the skin: her long black hair, 
which reached to her waist, hanging loose over her shoul- 
ders. 

“ Let me release you,” I said. “We are aground on 
dry land, or land that soon will be dry.” 

“We are quite safe, then?” 

“ Quite.” 

“Thank Heaven!” she exclaimed, fervently. “This 
has indeed been an ordeal. Beforetime I had persuaded 
myself that when my hour came I should not fear to die; 
but as that wave struck us and- the water came over me, 
and I felt as if we were going down, down, and should 
see the bright sun, my beautiful Fair Island, and those 
1 love” — here she looked at me strangely — “ never more, 
I knew what was meant by the bitterness of death. Yes, 
I am glad the danger is past; and I have to thank you, 
and I do. But where are we?” 

“ That is more than I can tell — somewhere on the island, 
I suppose.” 

“ We must be. But” — putting her hand over her eyes 
and looking intently round — “ 1 do believe — yes — this is 
Swamp Island.” 

“Swamp Island? What is Swamp Island?” 

“An unwholesome swamp, at the southwestern corner 
of Fair Island, from which it is separated by a narrow 
channel, and inhabited only by snakes and alligators. 
Nobody ever comes here, and we are a long way from 
Fairbaven. We have almost made the circuit of the 
island; the Painted Rocks are no longer in sight. But 
let us go below and see how Marian and Buttercup have 
fared since we fastened them up.” 

I had already noticed that Mab looked pale and worn, 
and I now saw that she was weak. As we walked aft she 
had to lean on me for support.” 

“ You are ill?” I asked, anxiously. 

“I shall be better in a few minutes. For the first 
time in my life I feel faint.” 

“No wonder, after all you have gone through. Any 
other woman would be more dead than alive. Why, it 
must have been twenty-four hours since you tasted food!' 

“You have fasted quite as long.” 


153 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Never mind me. I have been too anxious and excited 
to think about eating; but now I am* beginning to feel 
terribly peckish ” 

“ What?” 

“ ‘ Peckish 9 is a modern colloquialism. It means hun- 
gry. The one thing needful just now is grub.” 

“ Grub?” 

“I beg your pardon; I mean food. I think there are 
a few tins of preserved meat still on board. I must look 
them up at once.” 

By this time we had reached the saloon. Marian and 
Buttercup were alive, but very haggard and limp, and 
only just recovering from the worst agonies of seasick- 
ness. They were so ill, in fact, that my announcement 
that we were aground and out of danger did not seem to 
interest them in the least; all they wanted was to be 

quiet. As for eating! the very idea was enough to 

So, in the interest of all parties, I proposed that Marian 
should lie down in one of the berths and let Mab have 
her clothes while Mab’s were drying in the sun, for the 
clouds were now dispersing, and the weather taking up. 

“But what will you do?” said the queen. “ You are 
quite as wet as I am.” 

“ Oh, I shall easily find a rig-out. I can don some 
sailor’s togs while mine dry.” 

“‘Rig-out/ ‘togs!’” repeated Mab, with a puzzled 
look. “ You speak in riddles, Mr. Erie. I don’t under- 
stand.” 

“ Of course you don’t. I am always forgetting that 
you are not familiar with modern colloquial English. I 
mean clothes, garments,” 

“Good. ‘Rig-out’ is expressive, I think. I will go 
and rig myself out in Marian’s togs. You will go and 
rig yourself out in some other body’s togs; and if after 
that you will kindly find some grub I shall be extremely 
obliged, for I feel awfully peckish. Is that the correct 
thing?” 

“ You could not express yourself more correctly. 
Queen Mab, if you had been ‘finished’ in a London 
boarding-school,” I answered, with a bow. 

She responded to the compliment with a gratified 
smile, and went away with Marian, while I betook my- 
self to another part of the ship. 


154 A QUEER RACE . 

I had no difficulty in finding what I wanted in the 
way of clothes, and in the way of food I was fortunate 
enough to unearth several tins of preserved meat and 
preserved vegetables, a tin of biscuits, as well as some 
cheese and salt beef. There was tea, too, and I told 
Buttercup (he could hardly crawl, poor fellow, but I 
thought it would do him more good than going to bed) 
to light the galley fire and set the kettle on; and half an 
hour later the queen and I were eating as only people 
who have fasted twenty-four hours can eat. 

When we had taken the edge off our appetites we took 
to discussing our plans. Mab had only a vague idea of 
the distance from Swamp Island to Fairhaven. There 
are few roads in the remoter parts of Fair Island, and no 
mile-stones. She thought it was about three days’ jour- 
ney. The best way would be to go by sea. As, however, 
we had, unfortunately, no boat, that was out of the 
question. But, once on the mainland, we should fall in 
with villages and plantations, where we could obtain 
she iter and help. Mab, being of opinion that the chan- 
nel which divided the two islands was but a few miles 
away, proposed to set out at once. To this I demurred. 
It was now the hottest time of the day. We were all 
very tired; we neither knew exactly how far it was to the 
channel, nor how far we should have to go on the other 
side before reaching a settlement. 

“Better stay all night where we are,” I said, “and 
start at sunrise in the morning; the more especially as 
the channel being no doubt a tidal one, we may have to 
wait some time before we are able to cross.” 

“You are quite right. Let it be as you say. We 
shall be all the better for a good night’s rest. At the 
same time, I am very anxious to get back to Fairhaven as 
soon as possible. They are sure to think I am dead, and 
in that case there may be bad work.” 

“ Bad work?” 

“ Yes, bad work — trouble. Amyas Fane is my natural 
successor, and in the ordinary course of things should be- 
come protector in my stead. But the Council of Nine 
have a right of veto, and they may reject him in favor 
of my second cousin, Oliver Fane.” 

“1 know him — he was among the shark-fighters — a 


155 


A QUEER RACE . 

very fine young fellow. Still, I don't quite understand 
why they should prefer him to the other." 

“ He is better liked than the other, and I think he is a 
better man. I like Amyas; he has many good qualities; 
but, to tell the truth, he does not inspire me with implicit 
confidence. He is ambitious and masterful, and, I fear, 
not always sincere." 

“I see. You think that if the Council preferred 
Oliver, Amyas would refuse to accept their decision." 

“ I think it is very likely." 

“And then?" 

“ There might be trouble, confusion, strife, perhaps 
bloodshed, all which my return would of course prevent. 
While we were afloat I did not think about it. My mind 
was too full of other things; it never occurred to me that 
we should be cast away so far from home, and in circum- 
stances which would make it appear that we had perished. 
But now I see clearly that the consequences may be very 
serious. Amyas has friends, and Oliver has friends, and 
both are brave and impetuous. Yes, Mr. Erie, I am very 
anxious to get back." 

“ I can well believe it, and we must get back with all 
possible speed. But we shall gain rather than lose by de- 
laying our departure until to-morrow morning. And are 
you not taking the matter rather too seriously? We shall 
be back in two or three days — at the outside in four — 
and in that time no great harm can be done. They will 
surely seek for us; because the Diana has disappeared, it 
does not follow that we are all drowned, and Amyas could 
not decently " 

Here I pulled up short, for a startling suspicion had 
flashed suddenly into my mind, an idea to which I hesi- 
tated to give utterance. 

“Well," said Mab, “ what were you going to say?" 

“ Nothing particular. Only that I was sure Arm^as 
would not take any steps — would not attempt to assume 
the protectorate till he had assured himself that — you 
were not living." 

“That is not what you were going to say!" she ex- 
claimed, imperiously. “Tell me at once; I insist on 
knowing!" 

“ You cannot make a man tell you his thoughts, Queen 
Mab," 1 answered, quietly, “Suppose I admit that you 


156 


A QUEER RACE . 

are right, that I was going to say something else, how are 
you to know that I am telling you mv real thoughts, after 
all? I may tell you something else.” 

“ But )rou will tell me your real thoughts, Mr. Eric. 
You have a right to be offended. I was too absolute; I 
insisted when I ought to have besought. Tell me 
frankly what was in your mind. You may be sure I 
shall not abuse your confidence, and I — I will give you 
mine.” 

She spoke softly, almost caressingly; and when Mab 
lowered her voice it was singularly sweet and musical. 
I had already half resolved to “ speak out;” and even if 
I had not, it would hardly have been possible to refuse a 
request so graciously made. 

“ Well, my thought was this — it came unbidden — take 
it for what it is worth ; I dare say you will deem it very 
absurd. It referred to your cousin — Amyas. You saicl 
just now that he is ambitious and insincere. That means 
he is not too scrupluous. Now, ambitious and un- 
scrupulous men do strauge things sometimes. Is it pos- 
sible that he had anything to do with cutting the Diana 
loose — that his was the figure revealed to me by the flash 
of lightning?” 

Mab started and turned pale, and her eyes were trou- 
bled. 

“I should be sorry to think so,” she said, hesitatingly; 

“yet still There are many things in his conduct 

lately And, to tell the truth — I said I would be 

frank with you — the same suspicion has occurred to me, 
yet vaguely, and I thrust it from me. I would not listen 
to the promptings of my own mind; would not have it 
that a Fane could be a traitor; and I have been so kind 
to him. One favor only I refused him. Yet noth- 
ing is impossible, and as the suspicion occurred also to 
you, there must be something in it. Yes, Amyas is the 
man, or, if he be not, he knows who is.” 

“Don't let us go too fast, Queen Mab. Suspicion is 
not proof, remember; and we are a long way yet from 
connecting your cousin with the crime. But there is 
something else. A few weeks ago I received an anony- 
mous letter. Deeming it a sorry jest, or an empty threat, 
I said nothing about it; but now it is only right that you 
should know.” 


157 


A QUEER RACE. 

“An anonymous letter! Where is it?” 

“ Here!” taking it from my pocket and handing it to 
her. 

She read and reread the letter with knitted brows sev- 
eral times, her face growing darker with every perusal. 
Then she struck the paper with her hand and sprung ex- 
citedly to her feet. 

“ I know not who wrote this letter,” she exclaimed; 
“the hand writing is disguised; nevertheless, I will find 
out. Sybil shall tell me. But this I know: the hand 
which wrote it is the same that cut the Diana adrift. It 
is a vile plot. They — I say they, for there may be more 
than one — they saw that in you I had found a new-friend, 
a friend whom I could trust; and they wanted to get rid 
of you, to frighten you away, before trying to get rid of 
me. There is but one man in the country who is capa- 
ble of contriving such a plot, and he is the only man who 
would profit by its success — my cousin Amyas. It is 
more serious than I thought. Depend upon it, he will 
not wait for the verification of my death before proclaim- 
ing himself protector. No crisis so grave has occurred 
since Denzil Fane founded the commonwealth, whose 
ruler I am, and whose ruler, please God, I will remain. 
But I am only a woman. I shall want counsel and help. 
You will stand by me, Mr. Erie — you will be my friend?” 

These words, delivered with much fire and animation, 
moved me strangely. I took her hand and kissed it, and 
before I knew what I was saying I had protested that I 
would stand by her to the death. 

“I know you will,” she said, smiling; “ and afterward 
— when the danger is past — you will find that Queen Mab 
can be grateful; anything in her power — you have only 
to ask.” 

“ Shall I ask her about going away?” I thought. “I 
shall never have a better chance.” But before I could 
make up my mind Buttercup (who had been lying down 
in one of the cabins) came into the saloon, and the op- 
portunity was lost. 

“Poor boy!” exclaimed Mab, compassionately, “you 
look very hungry; sit down and eat something.” 

Buttercup required no second asking, and having a 
good deal of leeway to make up, he devoured nearly 
everything before him. He was a tall lad of fourteen, a 


158 


A QUEER RACE. 

descendant of one of the Hecate’s midshipmen, wonder- 
fully good-natured, and very devoted to his mistress, with 
whom he was a great favorite. 

“ Whither are you going, Mr. Erie?” she asked, as I 
went toward the companion. 

“ To prepare for our journey. We shall have to provis- 
ion ourselves for at least a day; and there are a few things 
I should like to take with us; among others, a couple of 
rifles and a revolver and some cartridges. It would be 
a pity to leave them behind. They might prove very 
useful — in certain eventualities. 

‘‘So they might. Let us take them, by all means. 
And the books. I should be very sorry to leave the 
books.” 

“Well, we will do our best. But books are heavy 
things to carry.” 

“ Never mind. I can carry them,” put in Buttercup, 
looking up from his plate. “ I could carry twice as 
many, and other things too, if you want. They don’t 
weigh above a hundredweight.” 

“ Thank you, George,” said Mab. “ I know you are 
both strong and willing. All the same we must not bur- 
den you too heavily; for we have a long journey before 
us. I think I should like to be able to load and fire a 
rifle, Mr. Erie. Will you be my teacher?” 

I answered, of course, in the affirmative, and fetching 
orie of the weapons, I explained its mechanism, and 
showed her how to insert the cartridges, take aim, and 
fire. We then went on deck, and I let her burn a dozen 
cartridges — I did not think we could afford to waste 
more. Mab proved herself an exceedingly apt pupil, and 
I told her — what was, indeed, the truth — that with a lit- 
tle practice she would make an excellent shot. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

SAVED AGAIN. 

All our preparations were completed before we turned 
in, and so soon as it was light enough to see our way we 
set out on our journey. 

Our burdens were pretty equally divided. I carried 
the cartridges (which were pretty heavy), the revolver, 
one of the rifles, tools, cooking utensils, and some twine. 


A QUEER RACE. 


159 


rope, and nails. Mab absolutely insisted on carrying the 
second rifle, and she and Marian also carried the greater 
part of the provisions. Buttercup, as he proposed, Car- 
Tied the books in two bags, which he slung over his 
shoulder. He could have carried more, but, though 
strong, he was only a lad, after all, and I knew, from my 
experience as a volunteer and a pedestrian rambler, that 
a pack weighs a good deal heavier at the end of a march 
than at the beginning. 

My plan was to make straight for the seashore and fol- 
low the coast until we came to the channel, then follow 
that until we found a ford. 

Failing a ford, I meant to extemporize a raft. 

We got on better than I expected. The tidal wave 
had opened a broad track down to the sea, and the sand 
on the shore, being firm and hard, made very good walk- 
ing. Despite the weight of literature which he bore on 
his back, Buttercup went gayly ahead. The two women 
were splendid marchers, walking with an even, elastic 
tread, heads erect, shoulders well thrown back, and 
looking as if they could go on all day long. It was all I 
could do to keep up with them. 

We reached the creek in about three hours. It was 
very full, the tide being just then at its height. Ford- 
ing" was out of the question; swimming, with our kit, 
rifles, and the rest, equally so; and I could see no suita- 
ble timber for raft- making. So I proposed that we 
should strike inland for a few miles, in the hope that by 
the time the tide ebbed we might find a practicable 
crossing. 

Mab concurred; and after a short halt and an al-fresco 
breakfast, we turned our backs to the sea, and followed, 
as well as we could, the course of the stream; but as its 
banks in many places were swampy and covered with al- 
most impenetrable brushwood, we had to make several 
detours, and for some time we got on very slowly. 

Shortly after we resumed our tramp, a bird, of which 
I did not take particular notice, flew out of a tree. 

“ That is a bad sign,” said Mab, who missed nothing. 

“A bad sign! Why?” 

“Don't you see that it is a magpie?” 

“Yes, it is rather like one. I did not know you had 
magpies i:i this part of the world.” 


160 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ At any rate, we call it a magpie.” 

f< Why shouldn't you? I am sure I have no objection. 
But you have not told me why it is a bad sign.” 

“Don’t you know that a single magpie bodes evil?” 

“ ‘ One for sorrow, two for mirth, 

Three for a wedding, four for a birth.’ ” 

“ I think I have heard something like that before,” I 
said, laughing. “ I once heard an old woman repeat it 
when I was a small boy.” 

“ You don’t believe in signs and omens?” 

“ No, I don’t, and I am surprised you do. Yet why 
should I be? Superstition dies hard; and your ideas are 

naturally ” Here, feeling that I was rather putting 

my foot*m it, 1 paused for further consideration. 

“ Oh, don’t hesitate. I know what you mean,” re- 
turned the queen in a hurt voice. “We islanders are 
backward and ignorant — our ideas are old-fashioned. I 
admit it. All the same, you must acknowledge that my 
forebodings have so far proved only too true, and if the 
flight of that magpie does not prove a presage of sorrow 
I shall be agreeably surprised.” 

“I have not the least doubt it will. Sorrow is sure to 
come sooner or later — rather sooner than later; mirth, 
too, whether magpies fly singly or in pairs; so are wed- 
dings and births — at the rate of a few thousand a day.” 

“ Don’t talk nonsense, Mr. Erie,” returned Mab, im- 
patiently (she was not used to being chaffed). “ The 
sign is only for those by whom it is seen. The appear- 
ance of that magpie boded sorrow for some of us. Of 
that I am sure.” 

“ Which of us is going to be married then? For see, 
there are three of them flying over that tree!” 

This time the queen did not answer; but a minute later 
she uttered an exclamation. 

“Stop! Look there!” she cried. 

Her sharp eyes had detected a deer browsing in a glade 
a few hundred yards ahead. I instinctively raised my 
rifle to my shoulder, and as I pulled the trigger the 
creature bounded away. 

“ Confound it!” I exclaimed. “I forgot that I was 
not loaded. What a splendid shot I should have had! 
However, I will be ready for the next.” And with that 
I opened the breech and inserted a cartridge. 


A QUEER RACE. 161 

(i Let me have one, too,” said Mab (she was a keen 
sportswoman). “I wonder whether 1 could hit a deer?” 

“ I have no doubt you could. There, your piece is 
charged. You shall have the first shot, if we do see an- 
other; and if you miss I will try. I thought you said 
Swamp Island was inhabited only by snakes and alli- 
gators.” 

“ There may be also a few deer. Or perhaps the one 
we saw just now has crossed over from Fair Island.” 

“ In that case there is likely to be a track and a ford 
not far off. We must keep our eyes open.” 

As we went through the glade, looking carefully for 
the slot of the deer. Buttercup, who was just then lead- 
ing the way, came to a sudden stop, like a pointer set- 
ting game. 

“Do you see something?” I asked. 

“ Rathe]’! Look there!” 

“ The embers of a fire, hardly cold, and feathers and 
bones! Who has been cooking here, I wonder — snakes 
or alligators? Or perhaps it is the deer we saw a little 
while since.” 

“ It is very strange,” said Mab. “ I am sure nobody 
is living here, or I should have heard. Hunters from 
Fair Island? But why hunters should come here when 
game is so much more abundant over there, I don’t quite 
see.” 

“ There is no accounting for taste,” I put in. “They 
must be hunters, and if we can find them, their coming 
will be all the better for us. They can show us the 
way.” 

“ There they are! But ” 

“ Back, back! behind the trees! — for your lives, be- 
hind the trees!” I cried, as an arrow whistled past my 
head, and another grazed the queen’s shoulder. 

Poor Buttercup was less fortunate. As half a dozeti 
nearly naked savages came toward us at a run, spears in 
hand, he fell to the ground without a groan, struck 
through the heart. 

“I will take the man to my right; you take the next,” 
I said to the queen. “ Now!” 

The next moment two of the black fellows jumped into 
the air with a yell, and then fell forward on their faces, 
dead. 


162 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Charge again, quickly! Here is another cartridge . 99 
But before we were ready for a second volley, the re- 
maining four, after staring at each other for an instant 
in evident consternation, disappeared into the forest. 

Mab threw down her rifle, knelt beside Buttercup, and 
raised his head. 

“ My poor, poor boy! They have killed him! they have 
killed him!” she cried, as the tears streamed down her 
cheeks. “Oh, how shall I tell his mother? Say, Mr. 
Erie! say, Marian! how shall I tell his mother? She had 
only him.” 

And then, closing Buttercup’s eyes and stroking his 
stiffening fingers, she wept silently. 

I waited several minutes, and then suggested as gently 
as I could that, as the poor lad was past our help, it be- 
hooved us to think of our own safety, and the sooner we 
got away the better. 

“You are right,” she said, rising to her feet. “God 
has taken him; his work is done, ours is not; let us be 
up and doing. Pity, though, we cannot bury him! 
But it would be risking too much. What shall we 
do?” 

“Make straight for the creek, and get through it some- 
how. There may be hundreds of these villains about, 
for anything we know. If we could only find that deer- 
track ” 

“Here it is!” said Marian, who had been questing 
about; her eyes were, if possible, sharper than Mab’s. 

“So it is; and plainly marked! Let us be off at once; 
we have not a moment to lose.” 

The track took us past the bodies of the two men we 
had killed. They were very tall, with long, muscular 
arms and broad, square shoulders. Their skins were 
almost black-red, their features of a decidedly negro 
type, but their faces and breasts were so extensively 
painted and tattooed that it was impossible to distinguish 
at a glance — and we had not time for more — whether 
they were piebald or the reverse. 

“What are they?” I asked Mab, as we ran on. 
“Fugitive slaves?” 

“ If they were, there would be need for us to run. No; 
they are Car i be roes.” 


1 03 


A QUEER RACE. 

“Like those who invaded the island in Denzil Fane's 
time?" 

“ Yes. I never saw any. But I have not a doubt of it. 
And I fear they are invading the island a second time." 

“ In that case — and I am afraid you are right — these 
are the first comers — the advance guard." 

“Yes, and they will be followed by thousands more. 
They have evidently chosen Swamp Island as their base 
of operations. The stroke we have so long feared has 
fallen. The safety, nay, the very existence of the com- 
monwealth depends on us. If we reach Fairhaveii 
quickly, we will have such time for preparations as will 
enable us, please Grod, to make head against the danger. 
The Cariberoes are sure to be joined by most of the Cal- 
ibans, and if our people are taken by surprise and over- 
come, not a single Christian will be left alive; and we 
have only ourselves to depend upon." 

“ But the aborigines — the Caribs — you can surely 
count upon them?" 

“ On their good-will, yes; but not on their help in the 
field. They have lost their old fighting habits, and have 
not been trained as our young men have been trained. 
It was considered policy not to train them — a mistaken 
policy, in my opinion; but such is the fact, and this is 
no time to cherish illusions." 

“ Do you know the country on the other side of the 
creek ?" 

“Pretty well. But you must be very familiar with a 
country to find your way through a thickly wooded dis- 
trict, where roads are scarce and people few. There is a 
hamlet called Weston’s which cannot be very far off. We 
must make for that, and, with the help of your pocket- 
compass, I daresay we shall be able to get there." 

In the meanwhile we were pushing on through bush 
and brake, wading swamps, clambering over fallen trees, 
our clothes in tatters, our hands and faces scratched 
with brambles and covered with blood — stopping at 
nothing in our race for life, yet all the while listening in- 
tently, and not forgetting to keep a lookout for lurking 
enemies. 

At length our perseverance receives its reward. The 
channel is in sight. We have struck it (following in the 
track of the deer) at a point where it is wide and pre- 


16 i A QUEER RACE. 

sumably shallow. The banks on the hither side are low, 
marshy, and covered with reeds; on the side over against 
us, high and steep, and, for a space of several hundred 
yards, destitute of cover. 

On coming to the water's edge we pause for a brief 
colloquy. The tide, though not at its lowest, is ebbing 
fast. Shall we wait until it ebbs further? My advice is, 
decidedly not. The Cariberoes may be on our trail — al- 
most certainly are on our trail; the low reeds afford 
hardly any protection, and even while we stand here 
whispering we may be shot down by unseen foemen. 

“There is no fear of our drowning/' says Mab; “we 
can all swim." 

“ But if we swim we shall wet our ammunition, and 
that might be fatal. We are all tall, too, and I hope we 
shall be able to do it wading. Come! There is no time 
to lose. I shall fasten the cartridges round my neck, and 
hold my rifle and revolver over my head. You two go first, 
and as you cannot well wade one way and look another I 
will stay here and protect your passage." 

“And when we are on the other side we will do the 
same service for you. Come, Marian!" 

And with that they plunged boldly into the stream, the 
queen (who had fastened a few cartridges in her hair) 
holding her rifle above her head; the tide ran very strong, 
and I watched their movements with considerable anx- 
iety; but these women were strong, active, and courage- 
ous, and though more than once up to the neck, they 
showed no sign of wavering, and in a few minutes had 
gained the opposite bank. 

Mab raised her rifle to show that she had kept her pow- 
der dry, and, standing on guard, motioned me to join 
them. 

“ So far so good," I said, when I was safely across. 
“ Now mount that bank as quickly as you can, and wait 
for me among the trees." 

“And what will you do?" 

“ Stay here until you are safe up there. You will be 
very much exposed while you are climbing that bluff and 
walking up the slope." 

“And you?" 

“ Don't trouble about me. I shall be all right. I 
can mount the bluff in a few minutes, and I shall make 


165 


A QUEER RACE. 

sure the coast is clear before I start. I remain behind 
only by excess of precaution — to make assurance doubly 
sure, as it were. Your life is very valuable, remember. 
We must not throw away a single chance. But this is 
no time for discussion. Don't stand upon the order of 
your going, but go.” 

Mab acquiesced, though, as it seemed to me, rather re- 
luctantly. 

“ When you hear the cry of the bell-bird,” she said, as 
they set off, “ you will know that we have reached the 
trees.” 

When the two girls had gained the top of the cliff 
(from which to the edge of the forest was a stiffish ascent 
of nearly a mile) and were lost to view, I considered my 
own position. 

It was very exposed. Between the foot of the bluff 
and the edge of the water was a space of some ten or a 
dozen yards, and as I stood there, waiting for Mab's sig- 
nal, it struck me that I should make a splendid target 
for the arrows of any Cariberoes who might be lurking 
about on the other side; so I thought it might be just as 
well to take advantage of the only bit of cover there was 
about — a stunted bush. But finding that it would not 
conceal me sitting, much less standing, I laid myself 
down, almost full length, at right angles to the creek, 
and, after placing my weapons and ammunition handy, 
leaned on my elbows and peered lazily through the bush, 
wondering the while how soon I should hear the cry of 
the bell-bird. 

After this I think I must have dozed a few seconds, for 
I opened my eyes with a start, and by way of keeping 
myself awake for the rest of my vigil (the run and the 
wade having made me decidedly sleepy) rubbed them 
vigorously and stared my hardest. 

The reeds were moving. 

“A deer,” I thought (they were about the height of a 
deer), “or perhaps some other wild animal. I am sure 
there is a good deal more game on Swamp Island than 
Mab has any idea of. There it is again. Something 
black. The snout of an alligator, perhaps. No. The 
woolly head of a Cariberoe, by Jupiter! Nothing else.” 

The next moment the woolly head was followed by a 
bronzed, tattooed savage face. It gazed furtively round, 


166 A QUEER RACE. 

and then the Cariberoe, seemingly satisfied with the re- 
sult of his inspection, rose to his feet and waved his hand, 
whereupon six more Cariberoes rose to their feet; and 
after another look round, the seven put their heads to- 
gether, like jurymen considering their verdict. 

At the same moment the note of the bell-bird rang out 
loud and clear. 

“ I am glad you are safe, Mab,” I muttered; “ but I 
am afraid I shall not be able to join you until these rascals 
have taken themselves off.” 

That they would take themselves off I made no doubt 
— in time. They had nothing to gain by following us 
further, and were not in sufficient force for a raid. This 
was my theory, at least; but after awhile I began to fear 
that the Cariberoes did not take quite the same view of 
the matter, Their proceedings, when they had done put- 
ting their heads together, were ominous in the extreme. 
They went down to the water’s edge, gesticulating fiercely 
and talking incessantly. They pointed to our footmarks 
in the mud, then to the bluff and toward the forest, as if 
they had a very strong suspicion that we were not very 
far off. Perhaps they had seen the flutter of a gown 
among the trees. 

Were they going to follow us up, after all? It looked 
like it; for after another putting together of heads, they 
unstrung their bows and fastened the strings round their 
heads. Then the tallest of the lot, after beckoning to 
the others to follow, stepped mto the stream, and cau- 
tiously feeling his way with his long spear, made straight 
toward the bush behind which I was lying perdu. 

“1 am in a pretty tight fix now, and no mistake!” I 
thought. “ Seven blood-thirsty savages within a hun- 
dred yards of me, and no getting away! The mere rais- 
ing of my head would be my death-warrant.” 

I confess it candidly, I was dreadfully frightened; but 
only for a moment. The very extremity of my peril 
seemed to steel my nerves and clear my brain, and almost 
on the instant I made my plan of campaign. Though I 
had little hope of saving my life, the attempt was worth 
making, and .1 might, at any rate, stop the pursuit and 
give the two girls a chance of making good their escape. 

Again the note of the bell-bird. 

Slowly, and taking infinite pains to avoid stirring the 


167 


A QUEER RACE. 

bush or exposing my body, I brought my rifle to bear, 
and waited until the Cariberoes were in mid stream, up 
to the arm-pits in water. Then, taking deliberate aim, 
I shot the tall fellow who had first stepped into the 
water through the head. Down he went, and was swept 
away with the tide; but the others, after a moment of 
hesitation, gave a loud yell and charged in a body toward 
the bush. Wading in deep water is, however, slow work. 
I reloaded my rifle, fired again, and brought a second 
man down. 

“ Surely,” I thought, “ that will stop them!” 

But no; they came on, if possible, more resolutely than 
before; and one rascal threw his spear with aim so true 
that had I not managed to ward olf the stroke with my 
rifle, I should have been pinned to the ground. 

I gripped my revolver, loosened the knife which I car- 
ried at my belt, and prepared for a life-and-death strug- 
gle at close quarters. But the odds were fearfully against 
me — five to one — and I felt that there was now nothing 
for it but to sell my life as dearly as possible. 

Hark! The crack of a rifle up there beyond the bluff, 
the whistle of a bullet through the air, and a third 
Cariberoe drops stone dead, and is swept away by the 
tide. 

“God bless you. Queen Mab! You have saved my 
life.” 

The four surviving savages, now effectually cowed, pull 
up short, and, turning round, make back as fast as they 
can. I had already reloaded my rifle, and could easily 
have picked one of them off, but for pity’s sake I for- 
bore; the danger was past, and I felt that there had been 
slaughter enough. Mab, however, gave them a parting 
shot, which, though it hit one of the fellow T s, did not 
seem to hurt him much; for, after a howl and a stumble, 
he continued his flight, and kept up with the others. 

As they disappeared among the reeds I sprung up the 
bluff, where, as I expected, I met the queen. 

“ Thank Heaven you are safe!” she exclaimed, fer- 
vently. “ I feared those WTetches had killed you. I am 
again your debtor for my life.” 

“It is the other way about: you have saved mine.” 

“ Oblige me by not talking nonsense, Mr. Erie,” she 
answered in her imperious way. “Had you not stayed 


168 


A QUEER RACE. 

down there at the risk of your life, what would have 
become of Marian and me?” 

“ Had you not left the shelter of the forest, at the 
risk of you life, and shot that Cariberoe in the very 
nick of time, what would have become of me?” 

“ You would have shot him yourself and escaped all 
the same.” 

“1 am sure I shouldn’t. They would have been on me 
before I could reload my rifle, and though I might 
have killed two or three more of them, they would cer- 
tainly have killed me. Shall we settle the dispute by 
saying that each of us saved the other’s life? Then we 
shall be quits.” 

“ Say what you like; we shall not be quits” — smiling. 

“ I am still your debtor, and some time But never 

mind that now. Why did those Cariberoes attempt to 
follow us across the creek?” 

“The very question I have been asking myself. ” 

“ Don’t you think they wanted, at all hazards, to pre- 
vent us from giving the alarm?” 

“ Either that, or there are many more of them down 
there than we have any idea of, and they are going to in- 
vade Fair Island at once. 

“ It is possible,” said Mab, anxiously. “ Let us go 
on. Oh, that we had fleet horses, or, still better, 
some of those wonderful speaking wires you have told me 
about!” 


CHAPTER XXYI. 

FRIENDS IN N EED. 

It was very easy to say, “ Let us go on.” But as Mab 
had only the vaguest idea of the way to Weston’s, and I 
had none whatever, the carrying out of the proposal was 
attended with some little difficulty. She thought that if 
we went east by north we should not be far out, and east 
by north we went — as nearly as we could: for going 
straight in that part of the island was quite out of the 
question. We were forced to make long* detours, and in 
order to advance one mile in a straight line we had gen- 
erally to walk about three miles. And yet we seemed to 
get no further; we were always toiling over the same sort 
of ground, always surrounded by the same bushes and 


A QUEER RACE. 169 

trees, and our view was always limited to a circle of a 
few yards. 

At lengh late in the afternoon, when the deepening 
gloom of the forest was reminding us that if we did not 
soon get out of it we should have to stay there all night, 
we came to a knoll bare of underwood, where the trees 
were tall and far apart. 

“Suppose you climb one of them?” said Mab. 

It was a happy thought, and I proceeded to act on it 
forthwith, selecting for the purpose the tree that seemed 
the easiest to mount, for I was fearfully tired. 

The first look when I got to the top was bitterly dis- 
appointing. The prospect was magnificent, but nowhere 
a sign of life, and I was just about to descend with my 
bad news, when I caught sight of a faint blue line rising 
slowly out of a mass of greenery, about two miles to the 
eastward. 

“Smoke!” I shouted, as I slithered rapidly down the 
tree. “I have seen smoke,” I repeated, as I reached 
terra firma, “and where that smoke is we shall find a fire 
and a house, and somebody to show us the way.” 

We resumed our journey in high spirits, and after a 
further tramp of haif an hour or so we struck a beaten 
track which led us to a clearing, a field of maize, an 
orchard, and finally to a farmhouse. 

This was Weston's, and we found Weston at home, 
and, despite our disreputable appearance, received a 
warm welcome. But Mab looked so very unlike a queen, 
that when I told him who she was he evidently thought 
we were poking fun at him. But when he heard our 
story his doubts disappeared. The possibility of an incur- 
sion of Cariberoes alarmed him greatly; he offered to 
accompany us part of the way to Fairliaven, and to do 
everything in his power to facilitate our journey thither. 
We were too much fatigued to go on without rest, but 
we gathered that if we took about six hours' sleep, started 
at midnight, and traveled by light of moon, we might 
possibly reach our destination by the following evening 
— “ possibly,” because much depended on the wind. 

Mab asked what the wind had to do with it, whereupon 
Weston explained that we could not foot it all the way 
to Fairliaven much under two days and a half; but at 
Dottrel's, distant about six hours, was*a stream known 


170 


A QUEER RACE. 

as the Roothing (doubtless so named by some Essex man), 
by which, as it ran very swiftly, we could reach the coast 
in six hours more, whence, with good luck and a fair 
wind, we might make Fairhaven Creek before nightfall. 

As for boats. Dottrel would see to that; and if the 
queen desired, he would, of course, be delighted to act 
as our pilot. 

After asking my opinion, and thanking Weston for his 
advice, Mab decided to take it, and trust to Providence 
for a fair wind. 

In the meanwhile Weston's wife had prepared us a sub- 
stantial meal, of which we stood in sore need. She, more- 
over, placed her wardrobe at the disposal of Mab and her 
maid; and being as ragged as any beggar, I gladly ac- 
cepted the offer of a suit of Weston's homespun. 

It was the first time I had been in a Fair Island farm- 
house. The building was of wood, one-storied, and very 
roughly put together, and the internal arrangements 
were primitive in the extreme. On the other hand, if 
there was little refinement, there was great plenty. The 
Westons had fields and orchards, slaves and goats (which 
supplied them with milk), and food and fruit in abun- 
dance; but none of the family (and there were seven chil- 
dren) could either read or write, and there was not a book 
in the house. 

Weston complained much of the wear and tear of slaves 
arising from their use as beasts of burden. ’ It was this 
which made them so savage and discontented. If they 
had horses or oxen, he thought slave labor might be dis- 
pensed with, and that would greatly simplify matters so 
far as the Cariberoes were concerned. 

This was obviously meant as a hint to the queen. 

“I know," she said, thoughtfully, “but horses are 
not the only things we lack, and when the present danger 
is past we will have several changes for the better, as you 
will see, Mr. Weston." 

The place-names in Fair Island were rather peculiar. 
A farm or plantation, even though it might afterward 
expand into a village, was almost always called after the 
first settler. Thus, Weston's would remain Weston’s, 
whoever might subsequently become its owner. Occupa- 
tions and professions were most hereditary, not by law, 
but by the force of custom. The parsons were all de~ 


171 


A QUEER RACE. 

scendants of the Hecate’s chaplain, and bore his name; 
the doctors were Sergeants; the school-masters, Switchers; 
the carpenters, Browns; the blacksmiths, Coleses; and so 
forth. Lawyers there were none; but that, as Mab after- 
ward told me, she looked upon as a blessing to be thank- 
ful for, not as a want to be deplored. Neither were there 
any prisons, breaches of the law (except treason, the sole 
capital offense) being punished solely by “sequestration” 
(a rigorous form of boycotting). A few weeks of this 
regimen was generally found quite sufficient to bring the 
most hardened sinners to their senses, and wrong- doers 
who expressed contrition and seemed really repentant 
were always pardoned. 

It was hard work, rising at midnight. I felt as if I 
had only just fallen asleep; but our business did not 
brook delay, and at a quarter past twelve we set out on 
our six hours’ tramp, accompanied by Weston, who took 
us to Dottrel’s, and Dottrel placed his best boat at our 
disposal, and agreed to pilot us to Fairhaven. 

Before we parted from Weston, Mab asked him to keep 
a sharp lookout for the Cariberoes, and if they appeared 
in force, to send her word immediately. 

“ If they appear,” he said, grimly, “ I shall disappear. 
I don’t want to have my throat cut. I will come myself, 
and briug the women and children with me.” 

The swift-flowing river carried us rapidly to the sea; 
the wind was fair; when the sun sunk behind the moun- 
tain we were off Fairhaven Creek, and by the time we 
reached the landing-place at the foot of the hill it was 
quite dark. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

TREASON. 

Mab, who for the last hour or two had been thought- 
ful and taciturn, told us in a whisper to follow her 
silently, and if we were accosted by anybody not to an- 
swer. She did not want to be recognized. At the out- 
skirts of the town she turned off into a by-path, and after 
walking about ten minutes, stopped at the door of a 
solitary cottage. 

“ Have you that letter?” she asked me. 

“Yes; here is it!”— giving it to her. 


172 A QUEER RACE. 

“ Wait there until I return;” and with that she opened 
the door and went in. 

“ Whose house is it?” I asked Marian. 

“Sybil's” 

“ Very old, isn’t she?” 

“More than a hundred; she is the only person in the 
island who remembers Denzil Fane. She is very wise, 
and they say ” hesitating. 

“ Yes; what do they say?” 

“ That she can read your thoughts by looking into 
your eyes, and tell your fortune by examining your 
hand.” 

“ I suppose people are afraid of her?” 

-“ Awfully. They say she can kill with a glance, or, 
at least, work anybody who offends her grievous harm. 
But the queen fears her not, and Sybil likes her. No- 
body else would dare go into Sybil’s house unbidden. I 
would not for all the w r orld.” 

We went on talking, or, rather, I let the girl go on 
chattering until the door opened a second time, and Mab, 
standing at the threshold, beckoned me to enter. 

I obeyed, and, after passing through a sort of vestibule, 
found myself in a little low-ceiled room, dimly lighted 
by a swinging-lamp. Under the lamp sat a tall old 
woman, with the most peculiar countenance I ever saw — 
and since I left Liverpool I had seen some very queer 
ones. A mass of snow-white hair covered her shoulders, 
and fell down to her waist. Her powerful face was like 
a corrugated bronze mask; but her ears, her neck, and 
her eyelids were as white as her hair, and her little eyes 
glowed in their deep, sunken sockets like live coals. 

Though rather startled, I did not feel much alarmed, 
and met the gaze of those burning eyes without flinching. 

“ Let me see your hand,” she said, after staring at me 
a full minute. 

I showed her my hand, which she examined with great 
care, both back and front. 

“ He is the man!”— to Mab. 

Then turning to me: 

“You are an Englishman. The last Englishman I saw 
was Denzil Fane. He founded this commonwealth. You 
are its destined savior. You have done much already, 
yet your task has only just begun. But fortune find 


173 


A QUEER RACE. 

happiness await you. And now go, for there is danger in 
delay. Take with you the blessing of an old woman, and 
ask God for His. The peril is great, and so is the prize, 
and the omens are good/’ 

“ Come!” said Mab, giving me her hand; and we went 
out into the darkness. 

" Whither?” I asked. 

"You will see. Quick! If we are late, harm may 
befall.” 

She led the way, almost at a run, back into the main 
road and up the hill, never pausing until we were in the 
middle of the great square. The Government House was 
lighted up, and before the entrance, which seemed to be 
guarded by armed men, was gathered the largest crowd 
I had yet seen in the island. But nobody recognized us 
— hardly noticed us, in fact; and giving the crowd a wide 
berth, we went round to the rear of the building, which 
we found silent and deserted. It was, however, easy for 
Mab, who knew all the ins and outs, to gain admittance, 
and we entered unperceived, by a wicket opening into a 
corridor which gave access to the great hall, where we 
could see all that went on without ourselves being seen. 

Torches of resinous wood, stuck in brackets, threw a 
lurid light on a strange and picturesque scene. Fifty or 
sixty armed men, broken up into twos and threes, some 
walking rapidly to and fro, others violently gesticulating, 
are engaged in a discussion which evidently excites them 
to the utmost, but as all talk together it is not easy to 
distinguish what they say. Suddenly a side door opens, 
and Amyas Fane flings into the hall. He is followed by 
Oliver, Field, and other members of the Council of 
Nine. 

The clamor ceases, and is succeeded by a silence so in- 
tense that we might have heard the dropping of the tra- 
ditional pin. 

“ I protest against this decision of the Council,” ex- 
claims Amyas. “ They have actually dared to reject me, 
and nominate Oliver Fane as Queen MaVs successor. 
It is infamous. I am her legitimate successor. Her 
death makes me ipso facto protector of the common- 
wealth, and I will maintain my rights against all com- 
ers.” 

This declaration is followed by shouts of applause 


174 


A QUEER RACE. 

from several of liis friends, who gather round him, as 
if for the purpose of giving him their moral support, 
and, if the need should arise, probably something 
more. 

“You forget, Amyas," says Field, quietly, “that ac- 
cording to Denzil Fane's will and our constitution, the 
Council have a right of selection, and this right they 
have, by a unanimous decision, exercised in favor of your 
cousin Oliver." 

“ It is all a base, intrigue. The right is obsolete, and 
I refuse to recognize it." 

“ You set the Council at defiance, then?" 

“ I treat their decision with contempt, if that is what 
you mean; and I shall instantly declare myself protector, 
and appeal to the people for their support." 

“That is flat rebellion, and, as president of the Coun- 
cil, I order you under arrest." 

“ You do, do you? And who will execute your decree, 
I should like to know?" demands Amyas, insolently. 

“ I will," says Oliver, stepping forward with dignity. 
“ You had better submit quietly, Amyas." 

“ Oh, yes; very quietly" — drawing his sword, an exam- 
ple which is followed by his partisans, among whom I 
perceived Bolsover, armed with cutlass and revolver. 
“ Touch me at your peril!" 

Oliver, Field and the others also draw their swords. 

“ You are mad, Amyas. I ask you for the last time 
to submit," says Oliver, “if only for the sake of your de- 
luded friends. You are the weaker party, and are sure 
to be worsted." 

“ Take that for your answer!" shouts Amyas, making 
a desperate lunge at his cousin. “ Now, gentlemen, at 
them! We will soon see which is the weaker party." 

“Stop!" 

And Queen Mab, who has glided unseen from her 
hiding-place, stands between the combatants, and with 
imperious gesture bids them lower their weapons. The 
two leaders step back aghast, and terror is depicted on 
every face, for all believe they see before them a visitant 
from the world of spirits. 

“ So you thought me dead, Amyas! You might, at 
least, have made some effort to ascertain whether I was 


175 


A QUEER RACE. 

perchance not still alive, before trying to step into my 
shoes.” 

“The Diana went down in the storm — and it did not 

seem possible ” stammers Amyas, in a voice so broken 

as to be hardly audible. 

“ How know you she went down? And, even though 
you had seen me perish, would that have been enough to 
justify you in setting the Council at defiance and provok- 
ing a civil war? Amyas Fane, you are a murderer, a 
traitor, and a dastard.” 

“ Madame!” 

“ 1 repeat it; a murderer, a traitor, and a dastard. 
You cut the Diana from her moorings in the hope that 
she would be carried out to sea, and that we who were on 
board would thereby perish. Don't deny it; I know you 
did. It was a murderous, a traitorous, and a dastardly 
deed. And you wrote this letter to Mr. Erie, virtually 
threatening him with death if he obeyed not your behest 
to leave the island -within ten days, because, I suppose, 
you thought I had in him a brave and devoted friend, 
who, in case of need, would defend my person and de- 
feat your plots! And so he has. Twice, nay, three 
times, has he saved my life. But for him I should not 
be here to-night.” 

To all this Amyas answers never a word. All his bold- 
ness has vanished; his knees bend under him, and he 
bo \s his head in shame and confusion. 

“You have nothing to urge in your defense. You 
admit the truth of these charges. It is better so. 
Without adding perjury to your other sins, you could not 
deny them. Gentlemen, I appeal to you all— even to 
those of you who call yourselves his friends — what shall 
be done with this man, who virtually pleads guilty to a 
charge of actual treason and attempted murder? Pro- 
nounce his doom! It is not meet for me to be both 
accuser and judge.” 

The queen paused for a reply; but none liked to utter 
the word which was in every mind, and there ensued a 
painful silence that lasted for several minutes. 

At length a white-haired member of the Council, who 
numbered more years than the century, broke the spell. 

“This man deserves death,” he said, slowly and delib- 
erately; and the sentence was repeated by fifty voices. 


176 


A QUEER RACE. 

Not even the men who had been ready to fight for him 
had aught to urge in arrest of judgment. 

“ Yes,” said the queen, “ he deserves death. But the 
prerogative of mercy is mine, and I freely pardon him, as 
I have a right to do, for his offense was against me per- 
sonally. I pardon him, not because he is my kinsman, 
but because I believe that he is not wholly bad. He has 
been led away by pride, envy, and ambition; yet he has 
good qualities, and if opportunity be given him he will 
make reparation and redeem his honor. Another reason 
for sparing him is that we have need of him, as of every 
man who can wield a sword and draw' a bow. The Cari- 
beroes are in Swamp Island, and I dare say by this time 
have crossed the creek ” 

“The Cariberoes!” — “ Impossible!” — “Who says so?” 
— “Has anybody seen them?” and a hundred other ex- 
clamations of incredulity, astonishment and doubt fol- 
lowed the queen's announcement, which caused almost 
as great a sensation as her own reappearance had done. 

“ Is this really true, Mabel?” asked Field, when the 
clamor had somewhat subsided. “ I know you think so; 
but there is such a thing as being misinformed. Has 
anybody actually seen the Cariberoes?” 

“Yes; we have seen them, been chased by them, and 
had to run and fight for our lives.” 

And then Mab told what had happened, from the be- 
ginning of our involuntary cruise on the Diana to our re- 
turn to Fairhaven. This done, she continued: 

“ So, you see, that which we and our fathers have so 
long feared has at length come to pass. You may be 
quite sure that the braves we encountered are either the 
forerunners of a large force, perhaps two or three thou- 
sand strong, or that a large force has already landed on 
Swamp Island. At any rate, it is not safe to act on any 
other assumption. You know, too, that many of the 
Calibans, who are of their own blood, being greatly dis- 
contented (I fear not without reason), will certainly join 
them — have probably invited them to come over, for sev- 
eral of late have mysteriously disappeared; boats have 
also been missed. Hence the danger is very great, and 
unless it be nipped in the bud the consequences may be 
disastrous, nay, ruinous. It will not be enough merely to 
repel the invasion. We must crush the invaders if we 


Ill 


A QUEER RACE. 

would not be crushed ourselves. It will be a severe 
struggle, yet if we all pull together success is sure. What 
say you, Amyas: will you take part in the struggle, and 
endeavor, by loyalty and devotion, to win back your good 
name and my confidence?” 

“ Only give me the chance, and you shall see, I 
swear ” 

“ But I cannot allow you to remain captain of my 
guard — that were unfair to better men; you must serve 
in the ranks as a common archer.” 

Amyas, who seemed deeply moved, bowed his head and 
kissed her hand. 

“I am more than conquered,” he said. “The life 
which I had forfeited and you have spared is yours, Queen 
Mab. Dispose of me as you think best. I "ask only an 
opportunity to prove that I am not unworthy of your 
kindness and forgiveness. So help me God, I will serve 
you faithfully to the death.” 

“ It only remains now,” the queen went on, after a 
moment's consideration — “it only remains now to say 
who shall undertake the necessary preparations, organize 
our small army, and command it in the field. To this 
office I appoint our guest, Mr. Sidney Erie. He holds 
the Queen of England's commission; he has been trained 
to arms. I can personally testify that he is brave, and as 
wise in council as he is prompt in action. It is a post of 
great difficulty and danger; nevertheless, although we can 
offer him little other reward than our gratitude, I am 
sure we may count on his loyalty and devotion.” 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

BOLSOVER HIMSELF AGAIN. 

Astonishment was not the word. For the moment I 
was simply stricken dumb. The idea of my commanding 
an army of piebald warriors in the field seemed too absurd 
for credence. I could not believe that Mab was in ear- 
nest, and I was about to tell her so, when she drew me 
aside. 

“I know all you are going to say,” she said. “You 
would rather not; but for my sake ” 

“I would do a great deal for your sake; but, really, 
you know, it is quite out of the question. I cannot con- 


178 


.4 QUEER RACE. 

duct a war and command an army. Yon must find a 
much better man ” 

“I cannot find one so good; not only so, I cannot find 
one — now Amyas is in disgrace — under whom the others 
would be willing to serve, and serve heartily; but all 
would be proud to serve under a British officer. If you 
refuse, the consequences may be serious — perhaps fatal.” 

“ In that case Let it be asymu wish, then. I can 

only do my best.” 

“ It is all I ask.” And then, addressing the others, 
she said that, albeit 1 naturally hesitated somewhat to 
undertake so great a responsibility, I had decided, at her 
pressing request, to accept the command, and that if I 
was loyally supported she felt sure the result would be all 
they could desire. For her own part, she conferred on 
me the most ample powers; every measure which 1 ad- 
vised must be adopted, every order I gave obeyed. 

This speech was received with applause, and rather to 
my surprise, everybody seemed to be eminently satisfied, 
whether merely out of complaisance, or because they 
really shared the queen's confidence, I could not, of 
course, determine. But, after all, I did possess some 
qualifications for the post. I had served both in the vol- 
unteer artillery and infantry, gone through a course of 
musketry instruction at Hythe, been brigaded with the 
regulars, and taken part in several autumn maneuvers 
and sham fights. I had, moreover, given some attention 
to strategy and the theory of war, and studied the plans 
of a good many battles, ancient and modern. All this 
was, of course, not enough to make me a general, but I 
had so far the advantage of everybody else in the island; 
and as the enemies we should have to encounter were only 
half-naked savages, I hoped that I should be equal to the 
occasion. 

I began the work of organization at once and on the 
spot. The first necessity was a staff, and I hardly knew 
one man from another. I decided to appoint the best 
shark -fighters as my aids, and select from among them the 
superior officers of my army. I knew them to be fear- 
less and resolute, and I thought they would prove apt 
and intelligent. The result justified my expectations. 

The next thing was to ascertain upon how many men I 
could count, and 1 gave orders for the archer-gaard, and 


A QUEER RACE. 


179 


every mail in the neighborhood between eighteen and 
thirty-five, sound in wind, limb, and eyesight, to be 
mustered in the great square on the following after- 
noon. 

Then I asked whether there were any maps of the 
island. Two or three were produced, which, though 
roughly drawn, were sufficient for my purpose. After 
studying them carefully, I asked Mr. Field (who was the 
leading member of the administration) to send two fish- 
ing-boats, the fastest he could find, to the further end of 
the island, one by the north, the other by the south 
coast, to watch the movements of the enemy and make 
inquiries, under strict orders to return with all speed and 
report any information which they might be able to ob- 
tain. 

Swift runners were to be dispatched on a similar 
errand to Weston's, Swamp Island Creek, Wy liter's Hill, 
and elsewhere; and a series of relays organized, so that 
messages might be forwarded with the least possible 
delay, and, as a matter of fact, they were forwarded al- 
most as quickly as they could have been by mail-carts or 
post-horses. 

By the time these dispositions were made it was very 
late, and as nothing could be done until morning, we 
separated for the night. 

As I was leaving the hall with Mr. Field, Bolsover, of 
whom so far I had not taken the least notice, put himself 
in my way, and said he wanted a word with me. 

“ Say on," I answered, coldly; for old Tom's recent 
conduct had not been at all to my liking, and I rather 
suspected him of having had a hand in the cutting loose 
of the Diana. 

“I ax your pardon, Mr. Erie," he said, very humbly; 
“but if you will let me say so, I have done you wrong. 
I was that disappointed with not getting the treasure — I 
had thought of scarce anything else all my life — I was 
that disappointed as I was a'most mad, and scarce knew 
what I was doing. And I blamed you, I thought as 
you was somewhat in fault, and as you could have got 
the treasure for us if you'd liked. Well, when I was in 
that humor, Mr. Fane comes to me and says as I had a 
better claim to the treasure than anybody else, and that 
he would see me righted. I believed him, but I can see 


180 


A QUEER RACE. 

now as he only wanted to make a spoon-handle of me, 
and may be to do something against you and the queen. 
But he soon found out as though I might be a fool I 
wasn’t a knave, and he did his dirty work himself, or got 
somebody else to do it. When the Diana, as was thought, 
broke away from her moorings and foundered, my eyes 
was opened, and I knew as I had lost my best friend; 
but it was not till you came hack that I had any idea as 
Mr. Fane was not as honest as he made out. And now, 
Mr. Erie, will you forgive me, and let by-gones be by- 
gones? If you can make any use of me, I am quite 
willing to serve with you agen these niggers, or redskins, 
or piebalds, or whatever they are. Pm a naval reserve 
man, and know my gun dr'll and small-arm drill as well 
as anybody.” 

I took old Tom’s proffered hand, and assured him that 
I should be only too glad to let by-gones be by-gones, 
that his help would be invaluable, and that I should give 
him an important command. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 
wynter’s hill. 

Never in my life did I work so hard as during the 
next few* days and nights, for I wrought eighteen and 
twenty hours at a stretch, sleeping as opportunity offered. 

When my messengers returned, ten days later, with 
the news that Swamp Island swarmed with Cariberoes, 
that a considerable number had disembarked in the 
neighborhood of Wynter’s Hill, and more canoes were in 
sight, the state of affairs was this: 

I had an army of some one thousand five hundred men, 
all of them in the prime of life, none less than five feet 
ten inches in height, as keen-siglited as hawks, as active 
as cats, and, as I believed, as brave as lions, but with 
nearly everything to learn in the way of discipline. The 
archer-guard consisted of five hundred men. They were 
splendid shots, marched fairly together, and could exe- 
cute a few simple movements. The others were tolerable 
bowmen, but when I took them in hand utterly unor- 
ganized. I divided the one thousand five hundred into 
three regiments, which I called first, second, and third, 
each officered by a colonel, a major, and five captains 


A QUEER RACE. 181 

(all shark-fighters). The subalterns and sergeants were 
selected, on the recommendation of Oliver Fane (whom 
I made the chief of my staff), from the first or archer- 
guard regiment. 

I also organized a rifle company of fifty men, under 
the command of Tom Bolsover. 

It was impossible, with the time at my disposal, to at- 
tempt anything like regular drill. We could do no more 
than teach the second and third regiments to march in 
step, form in line, and a few other elementary movements. 
Old Tom, however, drilled his fifty men incessantly, and 
made very fair shots of them. As for arms, we had any 
number of bows, and though arrows were in rather short 
supply, our stock was being rapidly replenished. We had 
swords and cutlasses enough for the entire force; the 
former nearly all of Spanish make, and very superior 
weapons. Our only fire-arms were two cases of rifles 
(fifty) and three or four others, together with half a dozen 
revolvers, taken out of the Diana; the old flint-lock 
muskets which had belonged to the Santa Anna were out 
of repair, and decidedly less effective than our bows and 
arrows. 

I gave Tom and each of the colonels a revolver apiece, 
and kept one for myself. Tom and I also carried each a 
rifle. 

My plan of campaign was very simple. I might, as 
Mr. Field and some of the seniors proposed, have chosen 
a strong position, and there awaited the Cariberoe attack. 
But as the Cariberoes might have taken it into their heads 
to march elsewhere, and I thought it inexpedient to 
let them take the initiative, I decided to attack them 
as soon as I found them, and wherever I found them. To 
this end, though I should have been glad of a little more 
time for preparation, I resolved to take the field at once. 
Within an hour of receiving positive assurance that the 
enemy were at Wynter’s Hill, I gave orders to march, 
and my men being splendid walkers and in good fettle, I 
reckoned that we should probably reach that place m 
about three days. We were attended by about five hun- 
dred Caribs, who carried our supplies of food and reserve 
ammunition. I intended also to employ them as scouts, 
but as they were quite unorganized and poorly armed, X 
could not reckon them as effectives. 


*182 


A QUEER RACE. 

I had not much fear that the Cariberoes would ev;ide 
me. Whether their purpose was conquest or merely plun- 
der, their objective point must be Fairhaven, whither the 
direct road ran along the north coast, the best cultivated 
and most thickly populated part of the country; and un- 
less they took a very devious and difficult route by the 
south, this was the only road they could, follow. I had, 
moreover, so arranged matters that, let them go which way 
they would, I should have speedy information. 

On the other hand, as they might make a move at any 
moment, I took every precaution to avoid being surprised. 
Two of our best runners were sent on in advance; then, 
at a short interval, followed four more, then eight, after 
whom came the advance guard, a company of the first 
regiment. Oarib scouts were also continually ahead, and 
our bivouacs (we had no tents) were guarded by a triple 
line of sentries and outposts. 

These precautions were all the more necessary as mul- 
titudes of slaves were leaving their masters, and no doubt 
conveying information to the enemy. The houses of sev- 
eral planters had been plundered and burned, and we met 
many fugitives (among others, our friend Weston and his 
family) on their way to Fairhaven. 

It was evident that the fortunes of Fair Island de- 
pended on us. If we were beaten, or failed to drive the 
invaders into the sea, the country would be ruined. 

As we were eating our evening meal after our third 
day’s march, two scouts came in with the news that the 
Canbs were still at Wvnter’s Hill, that they had been 
joined by vast numbers of Calibans, and that appear- 
ances indicated that they were making ready for a move. 
In reply to an inquiry as to their strength, I was answer- 
ered, “ Thousands.” 

This was rather vague, and not very satisfactory; but 
as waiting would not make them fewer, I determined to 
attack early in the morning. We had light of moon, 
and by starting at two o’clock we should be able to 
reach the neighborhood of Wynter’s Hill about six. It 
would be far better than getting there five or six hours 
later; for at that time of the year the noon-day heat 
w 7 as almost insupportable. 

Having come to this resolution, I called my officers to- 
gether, told them what I proposed to do, and gave such 


A QUEER RACE. 


183 


orders as I deemed necessary. They were full of fight 
and confident of success — rather too confident, in fact. 

The men were as eager as the officers, and marched so 
well (doing twenty miles in four hours) that at sunrise 
the runners reported that Wynter's Hill was in sight. 
On this I ordered a halt, and while the men were break- 
fasting I went forward with Oliver Fane and Bolsover to 
reconnoiter. 

The Cariberoes were encamped about two miles off, at 
the edge of a wood. Between our bivouac and the wood 
the ground was undulating and open, and, as I thought, 
not badly adapted for a battle on a small scale. But as 
the enemy occupied the higher ground they had the ad- 
vantage of position, and had they possessed fire-arms 
might have rendered it almost impregnable. Even as it 
was, if they clung to the wood and declined to “come 
on,” we should not be able to get at them without heavy 
loss and risk of disaster, for as yet their numbers were an 
unknown quantity. To overcome this difficulty I had 
recourse to a stratagem which, though it may seem cruel, 
was, I think, justifiable in the circumstances, my object 
being not merely to save the island, but to give the Cari- 
beroes such a lesson as would keep them away from it for 
at least a generation. As yet they had not seen us — ■ 
could not see us until we stirred, for we were behind a 
clump of trees in a dip of the ground. My plan was to 
send the native camp-followers on first, in the hope that 
the Cariberoes, perceiving how few they were, and that 
they belonged to the race they least feared, might come 
down the hill to meet them, a proceeding which would 
afford us the opportunity we desired. 

My stratagem, albeit far from being a failure, did not 
prove the brilliant success which I expected. Some of 
the men, contrary to my orders, lighted fires, so that be- 
fore our Carib allies marched out the Cariberoes were al- 
ready on the qui vive, and, though they came down the 
hill in force, they advanced cautiously and, rather to my 
surprise, silently and in good order. They numbered at 
least five thousand, and it was obvious that they were 
commanded by a chief who knew something of the art of 
war. 

The Caribs did not take much harm, after all — then. 
After exchanging a few shots with the enemy they bolted 


184 


A QUEER RACE. 


—according to order. As they ran down the hill we ad- 
vanced into the open, marching in line, Bolsover and hia 
rifles in the center, and a little in the rear, as until they 
were committed to an engagement I did not want the 
Cariberoes to find out that we possessed firearms. I held 
three hundred of the archer-guard and fifty men from 
each of the other regiments in reserve. 

The enemy, though, as it seemed, rather surprised by 
this display of force, stood their ground. When we were 
about two hundred yards from them, I gave the order to 
begin shooting, and I was pleased to observe that nearly 
every arrow found a mark. The Cariberoes replied 
briskly, shooting two arrows for our one; but their weap- 
ons were so inferior that their missiles did comparatively 
little execution. 


This went on for ten or fifteen minutes, when the Car- 
ibereos, drawing nearer, showed a disposition to come to 
close quarters, which was what I particularly desired to 
avoid; I feared that they might bear us down by the 
sheer weight of their superior numbers. 

“ Now is your time, Tom,” I said. “ Let them have 
it!” 


The old sailor wanted nothing better. His men (who 
had been lying clown, a little in the rear) stood up, the 
archers opened their ranks, and, advancing to the front, 
the rifles poured in a volley point-blank, which bowled 
the Cariberoes over like ninepins. The effect was tre- 
mendous. The enemy, completely taken by surprise, 
gave way in all directions; and seeing that the crisis of 
the battle had come, 1 told Tom to go on firing as hard 
as he could, called up the reserves, and was about to 
order a charge along the line, when Oliver Fane laid his 
hand on my shoulder and literally spun me round. 

“ Good heavens, Mr. Erie!” he exclaimed, “ look 
there!” 


He pointed to our left rear, a direction in which I had 
not turned my eyes since the fight began. 

“I see smoke,” I said, “and some of the bushes seem 
to have caught fire. What then?” 

“What then? Why, don't you see that the fire is 
spreading and the wind rising, and that in five minutes 
all the herbage between the cliffs and Wynter's Wood 


A QUEER RACE. 


185 


■will be in ablaze? The wood will burn, too; it is as dry 
as tinder; so shall we, if we stay here.” 

“ What shall we do? Ah, I see — the gap in the cliff. 
We must occupy it at once. And it will be who gets 
there first. I believe the Cariberoes are moving that way 
already. Give immediate orders for all the men to make 
for the gap at once — as hard as they can go.” 

Fighting was now suspended by mutual consent, or 
rather under a common compulsion; the Cariberoes g,nd 
ourselves raced madly for the sole avenue of escape from 
swift and awful death — death by fire. The gap, more 
than a mile away, was so narrow at the mouth — being, 
indeed, for a short distance practically a tunnel — that it 
could be defended by a handful of men against a host; 
and if the Cariberoes got there first! 

I never ran so fast before — or since — and after my three 
days* march I was in tip-top condition, yet, try as I might, 
I could not keep up with the swifter of my piebald com- 
panions. Oliver would have stayed with me, but I bade 
him for Heaven's sake hurry on and secure the pass. I 
would take my chance. 

Our foremost fellows are now neck and neck with about 
an equal number of Cariberoes, also splendid runners; 
and 1 watch every phase of the contest with sickening 
anxiety, for upon its issue depends not our lives alone, 
but the fate of an entire people. 

“ Thank God! They are drawing ahead. They will 
win! They will win! Breed and training are telling, as 
they always do. Bravo, Oliver! Bravo, Wild! One more 
spurt like that, and ” 

They have done it — the goal is reached! A score of the 
brave fellows leap into the gap, and as their swords flash 
in the sun and they turn to face the foe, I know that the 
race is won, the victory ours. 

But the battle has still to be fought. For the start 
was by no means “even;” not a third of our little army 
has gained the pass; while between us and them is a 
great body of the enemy, trying might and main to force 
the gap, and through whom we must cut our way or 
perish. I wait until the remainder of our fellows — 
among whom are Bolsover and Amyas Fane — come up. 
I rally them, and then charge right into the thick of the 
enemy, sword in hand. There is no time for shooting. 


186 


A QUEER RACE. 

They fight like fiends — as only men made desperate by 
fear can fight, neither giving nor taking quarter. It is 
man against man, sword against spear, and as we hack, 
and hew, and stab, thick smoke rolls over our heads. 
The fire is close behind us. 

But for Oliver and his companions we should never 
have got through. They plied the enemy with arrows, 
then charged; and the Cariberoes, taken between two 
fires, were forced back, so that after a short yet fierce 
struggle, we gained our point — those of ns who survived; 
for many had fallen, and all were wounded. 

The poor Caribs perished to a man. They were the 
last to start, and came up only as the Cariberoes, whose 
numbers increased every moment, were making one final 
and frantic attempt to drive us through the gap into the 
sea. We did our best to rescue them; but owing to the 
nature of the ground we could sally out only a few at a 
time, and so failed utterly. Though the Caribs in their 
extremity fought with frantic desperation, they fell like 
corn before the reaper, and the fight went on until the 
fighters, looking more like demons then men, were well- 
nigh inclosed in a ring of fire. Then, throwing down 
their weapons, they broke and fled — some making for the 
wood, others for the cliff. 

“They cannot escape, do as they will!” said Oliver 
Fane, half exultingly, half pitifully. “If they go down 
the cliffs they will break their necks; and before they can 
get through the wood it will be all in a blaze. The Cari- 
beroes will trouble us no more, Mr. Erie/’ 

“ If we could only have saved those poor Caribs ” 

Just then the fire swept up both sides of the gap, fill- 
ing it with smoke and sparks, and overcome with the heat 
and foul air (for we were packed like herrings in a bar- 
rel), the pain of my wounds, and loss of blood, I went of! 
in a dead faint. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

AFTER THE FIGHT. 

It is nearly a month since the battle of Wynter’s Hill, 
and I am lying with my head bandaged and one of my 
arms in a sling, in Queen Mab’s own room. Though con- 
valescent, 1 am still very weak, my hurts having been 


A QUEER RACE . 


187 


much more serious than in the excitement of the com- 
bat I had any idea of. The wounded had been removed 
to Fairhaven by sea, and as there was no public hospital 
in the place they were taken to private houses, myself and 
several others to the queen’s house. 

As I lie, with my eyes half closed, listening to the car- 
oling of birds and drinking in the sweet scent of flowers 
(for the day is young), I go over in my mind all that has 
happened to me since I left England, and I ask myself, 
What next? I am as resolved as ever to go back — it is 
my duty to go back — I must go back. And yet, and vet 
— though I struggle against the feeling, and try to ignore 
it, I know that in my heart of hearts I do not want to go 
back. Why? I had all along admired Mab, and 
now I should be sorry to leave her. 

As I ariive at this stage of my reflections, the subject 
of them enters the room. She is in deep mourning, for, 
like everybody else at Fairhaven, she has to lament the 
loss of kinsmen and friends. Of the fifteen hundred who 
went out to the fight, less than a thousand returned to 
their homes. Among the slain is Amyas. He was one 
of the last to fall, and nobly redeemed the promise he 
had made to his cousin. 

“I am glad you are so much better to-day, and that 
the doctor allows you to talk a little,* said Mab. She 
was more subdued in manner than I had ever seen her, 
and the pallor of her face and the dark lines about her 
eyes showed how much she had suffered and how deeply 
she sympathized with the sorrows of her people. 

“ Yes, I am very much better, and I think I shall soon 
be all right again; but the scenes I witnessed at Wynter’s 
Hill will never be effaced from my memory. I dream of 
them every night. It was like pandemonium. Have you 
heard whether any of the Cariberoes escaped?” 

“So far as we can ascertain, not one. None have been 
seen, and we have taken possession of all their canoes. 
But it is time we talked about yourself. The victory was 
dearly bought, yet it was worth the price; it has saved 
the commonwealth, and 1 don’t think the Cariberoes will 
ever invade us again — at any rate, not in our time. W ell, 
this victory we owe to you ” 

“No, no! If you had only seen how pluckily those 


163 


A QUEER RACE. 

young fellows fought, how splendidly they captured the 
gap, you would know better. I really did very little. ” 

“ I give our young soldiers all the credit they deserve; 
yet I am sure that but for the way in which you organized 
and led them we should not have won the victory. They 
all say so; I say so too, and I forbid you to contradict 
me. You have behaved splendidly, and I want to know 
what recompense we can offer you.” 

“ Recompense?” 

“ Yes; what shall be done to the man whom the queen 
delights to honor?” — smiling. 

“ Let him go home.” 

The smile vanished, and was replaced by an angry 
frown. 

“ Let him go home! You want to leave us, then?” 

“Don't put it in that way, please. I shall be very, 
very sorry to leave you; but I have friends in England, 
and an old mother, who is a widow. I am her only son, 
and if she thinks I am dead, it may bring her gray hair 
with sorrow to the grave. It is my duty to go home — if 
I can.” 

“ And among these friends there is one perhaps dearer 
even than your mother?” 

“Not at all. There is nobody else I care very much 
about, or who cares much about me. I dare say all the 
others have pretty nearly forgotten me already.” 

“How would you go?” 

“ If you would point out the position of the island 
on the map, and lend me the Sunflower and a few 
men, I think Bolsover and I could navigate her to 
some port where we should find vessels — possibly a 
steamer bound for England.” 

“And you would never come back?” 

“That depends. I should be very sorry I mean 

I should hope to come back — some time.” 

“Some time?” 

“I mean that I am a poor man, and have my way to 
make in the world, and I might not be able to come back 
so soon as 1 could like.” 

Mab seemed much agitated. She rose from her chair, 
walked excitedly up and down the room, then returned 
and sat near me, at the head of the sofa. 

“ I have a confession to make and a question to ask, ;j 


189 


A QUEER RACE. 

she said, in a low, tremulous Toiee. “I know it is not 

usual in England, but here, in Fair Island I thought 

— I mean that I did not intend — but now that you 
want to go home — and it is right you should — I must, 
lias it never occurred to you — have you not seen ” (im- 
petuously) “ that — that I love you — love you with all my 
heart, and that I should be glad — oh, so glad! — to be 
your wife? Say, now, have you never thought of this?” 

This avowal took me so completely by surprise that I 
knew not what to say — could hardly think, in fact — for 
in my wildest dreams it had never occurred to me that it 
would ever enter into Mab’s mind to make me a formal 
offer of her hand and heart. 

“You do not answer — you are angry with me!” she 
exclaimed, in a broken voice. “ You think lam un- 
maidenty. You do not love me. Well, be it so” — avert- 
ing her face; that face which had never seemed to me so 
beautiful. 

“No, no, no!” I said, taking her hand and pressing it 
to my lips. “Not until this moment did I know how 
dear you are to me; and if I had known l should not have 
dared to speak. You are a grand woman, a true queen, 
mv queen, and I love you as you say you love me — with 
all my heart.” 

“ As I say I love you! Oh, how little you know! ” 

I drew her toward me and put my arm around her 
neck. 

“ Do not think that I shall ask you to forego your visit 
to your mother. I will go with you to England!” 

“ You will go with me to England!” 

“ Do you think I would let you go alone? Now that 
we are no longer in fear of a Carib invasion, I can easily 
be spared for a few months. And I want to see England. 
We are very backward. We must have more books, and 
a printing press and machinery, and other things. And 
when we come back you shall take part with me in the 
government. We will abolish slavery — I have been read- 
ing ‘ Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” 

“ I am delighted to hear you say so. But what will the 
slave-owners say?” 

“ If for every slave I give them a horse they will say 
nothing; they will be quite content. And I shall buy 
horses.” 


190 


A QUEER RACE. 

“ Tii at will be a very costly operation. You will want 
a great deal of money. " 

"•‘I have a great deal. First of all, there is the treas- 
ure, which is worth I don't know how much, and I have 
pearls enough for a king's ransom." 

“ Pearls, Mabl Where on earth did you get them?" 

“They came out of the sea. There is a very valuable 
pearl fishery on the south side of the island. But it has 
net been fished for a long time, partly because we had as 
many pearls as we wanted, partly because my father feared 
they might create a craving for riches and luxury, and 
possibly bring other evils in their train. But if we can 
exchange them for something useful, and they enable us 
to abolish slavery, the good will more than outweigh any 
probable harm. “ Don't you think so?" 

“ Certainly." 

“ You can exchange fine pearls for money in England, 
I suppose?" 

Of course you can. To any extent you like." 

• f Then we will take a lot with us; buy, with the money 
they bring, the things we need, and pay for the Diana*3 
cargo. I think I would rather not touch the treasure; for 
Sybil says that so long as it remains on the island the 
commonwealth will endure. I don’t quite believe all she 
says; but she is a wise woman, and nobody ever neglects 
her warnings with impunity." 

“The pearls will do quite as well, though it does seem 
a pity to let all that money lie idle. Properly invested, 
it would produce a large income. However, you are per- 
haps right. You have everything you nee i, and enough 
is as good as a feast. But what will Field and the others 
say to your idea of making a trip to England ? It was 
only the other day that the mere suggestion horrified 
them beyond measure." 

“ Well, if it came to a contest of wills, I think mine 
would prevail. And you don't know what a change re- 
cent events have wrought in their ideas. You are the 
most popular man in the island. They think you were 
sent purposely to save the commonwealth; and the fact 
of your having survived so many dangers is regarded as 
a proof of the Divine favor — for our people, though, as 
you may think, rather superstitious, are essentially relig- 
ious. They have often urged me to marry, and our mar- 


191 


A QUEER RACE. 

riage and your undertaking to become one of us would 
reconcile them to anything. And we can concede so far 
to their prejudices and the injunctions of my ancestor of 
sacred memory as to bring no strangers back with us and 
keep secret the whereabouts of the island.” 

A few weeks later we were quietly married by the 
queers chaplain, a lineal descendant of the chaplain of 
his Britannic Majesty’s ship Hecate, and the next day we 
left Fairhaven on our way to England. Having ascer- 
tained the exact position of the island, we had no diffi- 
culty in shaping the Sunflower’s course for a not very dis- 
tant port, where, as I knew, we could obtain a passage to 
London or Southampton. 

As I anticipated, we had not long to wait for a home- 
ward-bound steamer. Our voyage to the Thames was 
unmarked by any incident of importance. A high-fitting 
dress, and a fouiard carefully adjusted and continually 
worn, prevented tiie peculiar color of Mab’s neck from 
being much noticed. But her tall stature, splendid pro- 
portions, and powerful face, and, I am bound to add, her 
somewhat imperious manner, could not escape observa- 
tion; and owing to the acuteness of her senses she often 
overheard remarks, complimentary and the reverse, which 
gave her more annoyance than amusement. For this rea- 
son, and for others which will suggest themselves to the 
reader, I decided to leave her in London while I went to 
Liverpool to see my mother, and inform her of what had 
happened to me. But on my arrival thither I found, to 
my great grief, that she had died a few weeks previously. 
It was, however, a consolation to know that her death 
was in no way connected with my absence; it arose from 
an organic complaint of long standing, and up to the 
last moment of her life she had cherished the hope of see- 
ing me again. 

After settling her affairs and calling on poor Mrs. 
Peyton, I rejoined my wife, and we left London imme- 
diately. Although the great city interested her much, 
she found life there intolerable, and was beginning to 
suffer seriously in health. The never-ceasing din dis- 
tressed her beyond measure; she could hear voices 
through an ordinary wall as distinctly as I could hear 
them through a paper partition; hear a cough in the 


192 A QUEER RACE . 

attic, a ticking watch in the basement. In the hotels at 
which we stayed I had to engage the rooms both above 
and below ours, and on either side of them, in order that 
they might be unoccupied. 

Before leaving London I sold sortie fifty thousand 
pounds’ worth of pearls, and purchased such things as 
Mab thought her people most required. 

To the managing owners of the Diana, I remitted a 
bank draft for the declared value of her cargo, with no 
other explanation than that, although the ship herself 
had become a total wreck, I had been so fortunate as to 
dispose of the cargo for an amount that, I was glad to 
think, would recoup the underwriters the greater part of 
the claims for which they were liable. 

To one friend only — an old school-fellow whom I acci- 
dentally met in London — did I introduce my wife and tell 
my story. To this gentleman, moreover, my book, if I 
may call it mine, will owe its existence. Himself a press- 
man and a writer of stories, he was good enough to say 
that my personal narrative, ‘‘put into proper shape,” 
might make a readable book; and he offered, if I would 
give him the necessary particulars, to act as its literary 
sponsor, and see the work through the press. Mab and 
I, after some hesitation, agreed to this proposal, making 
it, however, an imperative condition that the precise 
whereabouts of the island should on no account be dis- 
closed — for the present. 

The first and greater part of my narrative was then 
taken down in short-hand; the remainder I have written 
on the voyage out; and as I add these lines, Bolsover is 
waiting with the Sunflower to convey us and a second 
consignment of horses to Fair Island. 

In the not distant future I hope that Mab and I may 
have so far overcome her people’s prejudice against 
strangers, and their love of isolation, that we shall be 
permitted to say where we are, and in some future edition 
of a “Queer Race” invite those of my readers who may 
feel so disposed to pay us a visit in our island home. 


[the ehd .] 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


